Editing Amadeus (play) (section)

===Historical accuracy===
Shaffer used [[artistic licence]] in his portrayals of Mozart and Salieri. Documentary evidence suggests that there may have been some occasional antipathy between the two men but the idea that Salieri was the instigator of Mozart's demise is not taken seriously by scholars of the men's lives and careers. In fact, there is evidence that they enjoyed a relationship marked by mutual respect.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Brown|first=A. Peter|title=''Amadeus'' and Mozart: Setting the Record Straight|journal=The American Scholar|volume=61|issue=1|url=http://www.mozartproject.org/essays/brown.html|date=7 February 2009|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100825183005/http://www.mozartproject.org/essays/brown.html|archive-date=25 August 2010}}</ref> As an example, Salieri later tutored Mozart's son [[Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart|Franz]] in music.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Jeal |first=Erica |date=2003-12-19 |title=The feud that never was |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2003/dec/19/classicalmusicandopera.italy |access-date=2025-03-19 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> He also conducted some of Mozart's works, in Mozart's lifetime and afterwards.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hildesheimer |first1=Wolfgang |title=Mozart |translator-first=Marion |translator-last=Faber |date=1982 |orig-year=1977 |publisher=J. M. Dent & Sons |location=London |isbn=0-460-04347-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/mozart0000unse_c0t0/ |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{pages needed|date=November 2023}}

Writer [[David Cairns (writer)|David Cairns]] called ''Amadeus'' "myth-mongering" and argued against Shaffer's portrait of Mozart as "two contradictory beings, sublime artist and fool", positing instead that Mozart was "fundamentally well-integrated". Cairns also rejects the "romantic legend" that Mozart always wrote out perfect manuscripts of works already completely composed in his head, citing major and prolonged revisions to several manuscripts (see: [[Mozart's compositional method]]).<ref>{{cite book|last1=Cairns|first1=David|author-link=David Cairns (writer)|title=Mozart and his Operas|date=2006|publisher=University of California Press|location=Berkeley and Los Angeles|isbn=978-0520228986|page=14}}</ref> Mozart scholar [[H. C. Robbins Landon]] commented that "it may prove difficult to dissuade the public from the current Schafferian view of the composer as a divinely gifted drunken lout, pursued by a vengeful Salieri. By the same token, Constanze Mozart, she (in the film) of the extraordinary decollete and fatuous giggle, needs to be rescued from Schaffer's view of her".<ref>[[H. C. Robbins Landon|Robbins Landon, H. C.]] ''1791 – Mozart's Last Year.'' Flamingo (Fontana Paperbacks), London, 1990, p. 181.</ref>