Antonio Salieri

Subject: Antonio Salieri

Born: August 18th, 1750

Died: May 7th, 1825

Known for: Hmmm... This is tricky, because Salieri is known for very little aside from the rumor that he poisoned Mozart. In his time he was a very popular composer and enjoyed a high degree of success. These days his music is seldom performed. For our production of Amadeus, some of the music was impossible to find and ultimately needed to be transcribed and arranged from a recording.

Contribution to music: Salieri taught composition to several pupils including Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt.

Did he poison Mozart? Highly unlikely. The two composers were in competition for the same posts, but they were friendly.

So, what DID kill Mozart? The current thinking is that Mozart died from kidney failure brought on by complications from strep.