Quotes

Dialogue

Old Salieri: Leave me alone. Father Vogler: I cannot leave alone a soul in pain. Old Salieri: Do you know who I am? Father Vogler: That makes no difference. All men are equal in God's eyes. Old Salieri: [derisively] Are they?

Dialogue

Old Salieri: Can you recall no melody of mine? I was the most famous composer in Europe. I wrote forty operas alone. [suddenly inspired] Here, what about this one? [he plays the first few bars of Eine kleine Nachtmusik] Father Vogler: [begins to hum along as he remembered, and Salieri stops; smiling] Yes, I know that! Oh, that's charming! I'm sorry, I didn't know you wrote that. Old Salieri: I didn't. [Father Volger's smile fades] That was Mozart. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Father Vogel: The man you accuse yourself of killing.

Dialogue

Constanze: Stop it! Mozart: I am stopping it! Slowly. There? See? I've stopped. Now we're going back. Constanze: No! Mozart: Yes, yes! You don't know where you are! Here, everything goes backwards. People walk backwards, dance backwards, sing backwards, and even talk backwards. Constanze: That's stupid. Mozart: Why? People fart backwards.

Dialogue

Mozart: Why must I submit samples of my work to some stupid committee just to teach a thirteen-year-old girl? Count Von Strack: Because His Majesty wishes it. Mozart: Is the emperor angry with me? Count Von Strack: Quite the contrary. Mozart: Then why doesn't he simply appoint me to the post? Count Von Strack: Mozart, you are not the only composer in Vienna. Mozart: No. But I'm the best!

Dialogue

Old Salieri: [reflecting upon a Mozart score] Astounding! It was actually, it was beyond belief. These were first and only drafts of music. But they showed no corrections of any kind. Not one. He had simply written down music already finished in his head! Page after page of it, as if he were just taking dictation! And music, finished as no music is ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall. It was clear to me that sound I had heard in the Archbishop's palace had been no accident. Here again was the very voice of God! I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink-strokes at an absolute beauty. Constanze: Is it not good? Salieri: [snaps back to reality] It is miraculous!

Dialogue

Constanze: [to Mozart's father] May I offer you some tea, Herr Mozart? Mozart: Tea? Who wants tea? Let's go out! This calls for a feast. You don't want tea, do you, Papa? Constanze: Wolfie... Mozart: I know, let's go dancing! Papa loves parties, don't you? Constanze: Wolfie! Mozart: What? How you can be so boring? Tea...

Dialogue

Schikaneder: Herr Mozart, why don't you name you son's penalty?! Mozart: [walks up to his father] Yes, papa. Name it. Name it, I'll do anything you say. Anything. Leopold Mozart: I want you to come back to Salzburg with me, my son. Mozart: Papa, the rule is you can only give a penalty that can be performed in the room! Leopold Mozart: I'm tired of this game, I don't want to play anymore. Mozart: But my penalty! [jumping up and down like an angry child] I've got to have a penalty!

Dialogue

Salieri: Mozart, it was good of you to come! Mozart: How could I not? Salieri: How...Did my work please you? Mozart: [hesitantly] I never knew that music like that was possible! Salieri: [not fooled] You flatter me. Mozart: [insincerely] No, no! One hears such sounds, and what can one say but...Salieri!

Dialogue

Old Salieri: My plan was so simple. It terrified me. First I must get the death mass and then, I must achieve his death. Father Vogler: [stares in horror] What? Old Salieri: His funeral! Imagine it, the cathedral, all Vienna sitting there, his coffin, Mozart's little coffin in the middle, and then, in that silence, music! A divine music bursts out over them all. A great mass of death! Requiem mass for Wolfgang Mozart, composed by his devoted friend, Antonio Salieri! Oh what sublimity, what depth, what passion in the music! Salieri has been touched by God at last. And God is forced to listen! Powerless, powerless to stop it! I, for once in the end, laughing at Him! [beat] The only thing that worried me was the actual killing. How does one do that? Hmmm? How does one kill a man? It's one thing to dream about it; very different when, when you, when you have to do it...with your own hands.

Dialogue

Mozart: "Confutatis maledictis" - when the wicked are confounded. "Flammis Acribus Addictis." How would you translate that? Salieri: Consigned to flames of woe. Mozart: Do you believe in it? Salieri: What? Mozart: A fire which never dies, burning you forever? Salieri: Oh, yes.

Dialogue

Mozart: I'm so ashamed. Salieri: Of what? Mozart: I was foolish. I thought you did not care for my work or me. [softly] Forgive me. [Salieri appears visibly shaken] Forgive me...