Mozart and Salieri: between the Nature and Reason of Artistic Creation

Abstract

This article deals with the mystification of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death, and its dramatization in the play Mozart and Salieri by Russian poet Alexander Serguéyevich Pushkin. The analysis of the piece and a revision of its context will reveal the unstable equilibrium of the principles of artistic creation discovered by the Romantics in the Mozartian myth. In the play, Pushkin gives this myth a tragic interpretation. Its characters represent the eternal conflict between reason and nature in artistic creation. Salieri represents technè [τέχνη], the skillful craftsman [τεχνίται] who is the result of effort and thought. Mozart, on the other hand, represents mousikè [μουσική], the inspired poet-musician [ἀοιδός], whose art comes only from the divine gift conferred by the Muses.