When nationalism “adopts” a composer, it rewrites them by erasing every blemish, sets aside others who might compete, or belittles them to exalt the chosen one even further. To do this, it concretely removes real but inconvenient people, inappropriate social networks, and marked vices or flaws from the picture. In short: it erases history, leaving only the hagiographic icon.
With Mozart, the 20th-century maneuver (carried out brutally during Nazism) worked like this. To save the genius by making him "pure", the impurity was dumped onto two Italians, perfect for the role of scapegoats: Lorenzo Da Ponte and Antonio Salieri. The former was too closely linked to a Jewish origin, the latter to the annoying Italian competitors who dominated the stage at the time. The result is a dehumanized Mozart, good for posters and terrible for the truth.
1) Mozart and the Jews: Vienna was not an "Aryan" aquarium
Mozart did not live in a sterilized universe. He lived in Vienna, where many Jews — thanks in part to the reforms of Joseph II — managed to assume prestigious roles. The Edict of Tolerance of January 2, 1782, marked an important passage, and Viennese social life became more permeable, though certainly not "modern" in the full sense.
Many converted to Catholicism to integrate better. Mozart frequented them as one frequents real people, for friendship, work, necessity, and social environment. He was, for example, indebted to the Jewish banker Raimund von Wetzlar, who had offered him loans and lodging in December 1782. Among the regular subscribers to his concerts was Baron Joseph von Sonnenfels. And many Jews attended Masonic lodges and were thus also Brothers in the same social circuit in which Mozart moved.
This reality is only a problem if you want to turn Mozart into a "pure" identity icon. Because a historical Mozart is European and mixed. A symbolic Mozart, however, must be aseptic. And when this is decided, the scissors of censorship snap shut.
2) Da Ponte: The blind spot of musical nationalism
Lorenzo Da Ponte is a thorn in the side, not for artistic reasons, but for a reason embarrassing to propaganda, as it proves that works are not born from a god speaking in a vacuum, but from a partnership, from a shared craft, from theater made of words, conventions, rehearsals, singers, and compromises.
The three operas set to Da Ponte's librettos — Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), Così fan tutte (1790) — are not an ornament in Mozart's biography: they are a pillar. Yet, in "cleansed" 20th-century narratives (including films), Da Ponte is often eliminated or reduced to background noise.
Because Da Ponte is too many things at once: Italian, linked to a Jewish origin, and above all, living proof that Mozart worked within a cultural system. In a racially and nationalistically charged narrative, such a character is decidedly unmanageable, given that you cannot celebrate him or integrate him. So, you make him disappear.
3) The "moral" demolition of Da Ponte: Culprit for everything disliked
The most convenient strategy is always the same. Mozart remains untouchable, Da Ponte becomes the culprit. If something sounds "immoral," "frivolous," or "indecent," then it cannot be Mozart. It must be the librettist. Thus the demigod who writes notes inspired by heaven despite the texts is saved, while the man who wrote them is burned.
The perfect target is Così fan tutte. In a moralistic reading, it is enough to say that the plot is light and "scandalous" and the trick is done. Mozart is excused, even exalted, while Da Ponte is pinned as cynical and dissolute. A ridiculous but effective court is thus constructed, in which music absolves and the word condemns.
And when this operation fails, the most effective technique of all is used: not attacking Da Ponte by never naming him at all.
4) Silent erasure: Speaking of the works without naming the librettist
Here we are in high-quality propaganda, which doesn't scream but works with a file. People talk about the "trilogy" as if it were a natural destiny, a unitary block, a cathedral fallen from the sky. And meanwhile, naming the librettist is avoided, or a poisonous formula is adopted, insinuating that Da Ponte was a mere subordinate and, when the text is good, it is because Mozart supposedly corrected, transfigured, or "ennobled" it, while when it is bad, it is the Italian's fault. In other words, Da Ponte is not an author: he is raw material.
This erasure is not a philological detail but an ideological choice, which serves to build the idea of a self-sufficient, "national" Mozart who needs no one. Convenient, isn't it? Too bad it's false.
5) Translating to purify: The German libretto as an identity filter
A practical problem remains: language. If you want to present those works as national heritage, Italian is a foreign body. And so you push for German translations, not as a simple theatrical choice, but as an identity gesture.
Here the grotesque becomes revealing, because "suitable" translations are sought, versions are discarded, and texts are replaced. It's not just a matter of meter. There is the idea that even the word, to be accepted, must pass a conformity check. The result is a tradition of translations that continues to produce effects long after the Second World War.
When you cannot burn Mozart, you "cleanse" him by changing everything around him that makes him historical, starting with the language.
6) Salieri: From esteemed colleague to "mediocre Italian"
If Da Ponte is eliminated because he complicates the myth, Salieri is distorted because the myth needs an antagonist—not just any antagonist, but one who embodies the moral fable of "genius versus envy."
The rumor of poisoning is perfect, as it is theatrical, simple, and memorable. Over time it becomes a narrative machine—first literary, then theatrical, then cinematic—and with every step, the story simplifies. Mozart becomes the saint, Salieri becomes the villain; but above all, Mozart becomes the "right" genius, Salieri the "wrong" foreigner.
Within this construction, nuance dies. Salieri is no longer a real musician, well-known and universally appreciated, with an enormous career in Vienna. He becomes a mask, useful because, in the subtext, it allows for a brutal message: every Italian is mediocre, and therefore can only be remembered as intrigue and failure.
The point is that Salieri, in Vienna, was not a bit player but an institution (suffice it to remember that he was the teacher of Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt).
Salieri, master and benefactor
Salieri was a kind being, with such a passion for his art that he did not refrain from giving, at times, free lessons to anyone who wanted to learn music: he would have taught it to the birds that flew around him. He went in search of talents inclined toward music and, where he discovered any, he called them to him and, with a father's love—especially if poor—he taught them at his own home, setting aside every other commitment for this charitable occupation.
How many singers have not studied with him? And among the composers who were his disciples are Weigl, Süssmayr—a pupil of Salieri before Mozart—, Moscheles, Carl Czerny, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Liszt—who already as a child knew how to arouse wonder in Paris and London—, Beethoven, Schubert, Antonín Reicha, and even Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart.
This is the real profile of Salieri: an esteemed master, an untiring teacher, a recognized point of reference in musical Vienna. Everything else — the poison, the confession, the crime — is a posthumous construction, fueled by rumors, interests, and propaganda. (Mozart. The Fall of the Gods, Part I)
7) Nationalist and racist inventions
The writer and librettist Giuseppe Carpani (1751–1825), horrified by the unchecked gossip, had tried to have a letter published in Vienna in defense of Maestro Salieri, but he had failed. Therefore, still from Vienna, he sent it to the Biblioteca Italiana, which published it on August 10, 1824, under the title Letter from Mr. G. Carpani in defense of Maestro Salieri, slandered regarding the poisoning of Maestro Mozzard.
The year before, Salieri suffered a physical and mental breakdown. Due to his disability, he was admitted to the Wiener Allgemeines Krankenhaus. The nationalist party took advantage of the fact that he was ill and that, being incapable of understanding or willing, the Maestro could not defend himself.
Rumors had already been circulated that the Freemasons in league with the Jews had killed Mozart. Since Salieri was a Freemason, it was said that he had confessed to being the murderer. The news of Mozart's death by alleged poisoning was first published by the Musikalischer Wochenblatt of Berlin, reporting a rumor from Prague. It stated that Mozart had died after returning ill from Prague and had never recovered. Since his body had swollen after death, it was even believed that he had been poisoned.
Constanze passed the same information to Franz Niemetschek, who began to embroider upon it a passage in the 1798 biography: during a walk in the Prater with his wife, while sitting together, Mozart began to speak of death and to claim that the Requiem he was composing was destined for himself. He confessed the strange feeling that he could not survive much longer.
I am certain that someone has made me drink poison! I cannot rid myself of this idea.
The rumors were artfully transformed into slanders against Salieri, considered by the nationalist party to be the material perpetrator of the misdeed within Masonic circles. Salieri, slandered, debased, trampled under the public scourge, obviously had nothing to do with it. He was still highly esteemed at court and no one had dreamed of taking him to court (Luca Bianchini & Anna Trombetta, Mozart. The Fall of the Gods, Part I).
The poisoning did not take place, nor was it ever confessed
Moscheles says so, and the written depositions of the nurses who cared for the Maestro in the last days of his life confirmed it. Carpani had the testimonies published to silence the slander once and for all. Even in moments of delirium, the infirm Salieri did not utter a word of what his sacrilegious accusers later made him say. Fortunately, Salieri's illness was of such a nature that he could not be left alone for even a moment. Two nurses had been called and never left the sick man. And they reported without hesitation or reticence that they never heard Salieri speak of poisoning anyone, least of all Mozart.
We, the undersigned professional nurses, declare, before God and men, that in the winter of 1823, we were called for the constant care and assistance of Cavalier Salieri, chapel master of the I.R. court, and that from the beginning of the long illness from which he still suffers, we have never left him for a single moment, so that when one went away, the other remained by him for custody. We further attest that due to his weakness no one was allowed to see him except us and his physician, not even his family being permitted to visit him. Consequently, we assure, upon being asked if it were true that the aforesaid Cavalier Salieri said during his illness that he had poisoned the celebrated composer Wolfgang Mozart, that, on our honor and our conscience, we have never heard the aforementioned Salieri say this, nor make the slightest mention of anything referring to it. In confirmation of this, we sign this writing. Vienna, June 25, 1824. Giorgio Rosenberg, nurse / Amadeo Porsche, nurse to Mr. Salieri, court chapel master.
NB. Dr. Rhik, Salieri's attending physician, confirms what was stated in the above certificate by his assistant nurses.
8) Pushkin: The final joke is that the text is read backward
The truly instructive part is this: the most cited literary origin is often betrayed. In Pushkin's micro-drama, Mozart and Salieri are not "genius versus non-entity," but two ideas of art: presumed gift and real effort, inspiration and labor. The conflict is philosophical, not biographical. Pushkin does not write a manifesto to humiliate Salieri: he stages a human and tragic problem.
The 20th century, however, needs a simple moral and a stable culprit. Thus Salieri is compressed into a caricature, Mozart is exalted beyond measure, and Da Ponte disappears. Salieri had no reason to be jealous of Mozart: he was Chapel Master, highly esteemed. If anything, the opposite is much more plausible: Mozart, who never managed to obtain a stable position, chasing it uselessly as his father (eternally vice-master) had done, could have had reasons for frustration. In Vienna, he had limited assignments, such as music for the carnival. Modern readings, besides being false, are readings of convenience.
Pushkin does not write a courtroom accusation: he writes a satire on credulity. And the final joke is that even today it is read backward.
Note: Pushkin does not write "Mozart genius / Salieri mediocre." He says the opposite (and he does it on purpose)
If they tell you that Pushkin's micro-drama Mozart and Salieri is the "literary proof" of Salieri's mediocrity, know that they are reading it backward. In Scene Two, Mozart clearly says that Beaumarchais is "a genius like you and me." Pushkin puts this more explosive equivalence in Mozart's mouth: Salieri is as much a genius as Mozart. It is not a formal compliment, but rather the axis of the drama.
Then Pushkin does something even more refined: he inserts the parallel with Michelangelo Buonarroti. Salieri, left alone, wonders if "genius and villainy" are incompatible and recalls the rumor about Buonarroti (the one about the crime committed to better sculpt a Christ). It is a deliberately provocative parallel because it works in both cases: if the rumor about Michelangelo is false, then Pushkin is saying that the rumor about Salieri is also nonsense; if the rumor were true, then Salieri is still placed on the same level of greatness, because he is compared to the "creator of the Vatican." Whichever way you read it, the result does not change: Salieri remains a great.
The closing is a trap for lazy readers: Pushkin equates two slanders (Salieri as poisoner and Michelangelo as murderer) and, in doing so, mocks "the foolish people who believe rumors." The drama is not created to nail Salieri: it is created to show how a lie, repeated, becomes "truth" and how the public falls in love with gossip more than thought. If the 20th century then turned that satire into a verdict, the problem is not Pushkin: it is the propaganda that needs a guilty Italian to keep the icon standing.
Conclusion: To "purify" Mozart, Da Ponte must be expelled and Salieri slandered
The picture that remains is clear, and not very edifying: to build a "pure" Mozart, two complementary operations are needed. Da Ponte must be erased and Salieri must be slandered.
The point is not to defend Da Ponte or Salieri out of prejudice. The point is to dismantle a mechanism: when music becomes an identity tool, the first thing that dies is historical complexity. Only symbols remain. And symbols, as we know, do not study; they command.
If we truly want to move beyond musical nationalisms, we must do something very simple and very difficult: put people back in their place in history. Even those that the myth attempted to erase.
History is not a sanctuary, but a construction site. Nationalisms, instead, present that construction site as a sanctuary already consecrated.
