# Neville Marriner’s Mozart recordings for the movie Amadeus(1984)



## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

What do you guys think about these recordings, and in general, Marriner’s Mozart? I think he is the greatest Mozart conductor of all time. I think that his recordings are perfectly paced with very good phrasing and I also think the magic not only lies with Marriner but also with the Acadamy of St. Martin in the Fields, a great orchestra and the perfect size for Mozart in my opinion. I know a lot of people will name Walter or Klemperer or maybe Szell as the greatest Mozart conductor, but I find that their tempi can be very dragging and heavy. For example in the inner movements of the symphonies, especially the 3rd movement often just doesn’t land for me. Back to Amadeus, the soundtrack includes the 25th symphony, the don Giovanni overture and the 3rd movement of the 22nd piano concerto. I think these are the best recordings of each respective piece and that applies to basically everything Marriner recorded for Amadeus. I’m curious about your opinions and I hope that if you haven’t heard the recordings or god help me haven’t seen the movie Amadeus that you check them out


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

I have a very sentimental attachment to them. I started getting into classical music when I was in middle school (about 15 years ago), and I watched _Amadeus_ around that time. Every excerpted work was new to me, and so the ASMF and Marriner _were_ Mozart as far as I was concerned. In June 2007, my first ever iTunes purchase was this recording of the D minor piano concerto with Ivan Moravec:









To this day it may still be my favorite single recording of any work. I never acquired the soundtrack album itself, but over time I got my hands on an ASMF/Marriner recording of most of the works featured in the movie: the requiem, Symphony No. 25, the C minor mass, _Don Giovanni_, etc. I don't listen to so much Mozart these days, and when I do I've come to enjoy the HIP approach in this music very much, but I'm still a fan of Marriner's Mozart.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

John Zito said:


> I have a very sentimental attachment to them. I started getting into classical music when I was in middle school (about 15 years ago), and I watched _Amadeus_ around that time. Every excerpted work was new to me, and so the ASMF and Marriner _were_ Mozart as far as I was concerned. In June 2007, my first ever iTunes purchase was this recording of the D minor piano concerto with Ivan Moravec:
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What a great story, and I feel like Marriner takes an HIP approach but with modern instruments which is perfect for Mozart IMO. I'm still pretty new to classical music so I still have to listen to a lot of classical music including Mozart. Amadeus wasn't my introduction to classical music and also not to Mozart, but it did make me love Mozart a lot and it introduced me to a lot of new pieces and I will always love it for that. Besides, the movie itself is awesome


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Marriner isn't one of my favorite conductors in Mozart or any other composer - I'll leave it at that.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Bulldog said:


> Marriner isn't one of my favorite conductors in Mozart or any other composer - I'll leave it at that.


Who do you like for Mozart? Not meant as hostile but I'm genuinely curious. Even better would be if you could recommend a different conductor for the pieces that are in the movie Amadeus like the 25th symphony, the don Giovanni overture and the 3rd movement of the 22nd piano concerto.


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## John Zito (Sep 11, 2021)

EvaBaron said:


> I feel like Marriner takes an HIP approach but with modern instruments which is perfect for Mozart IMO.


Yeah, it's my understanding that in the history of performance practice in the 20th century, Marriner and the ASMF are sort of transitional figures between "Big Band Mozart" (which I don't especially care for) and full-on scratchy, period instrument HIP (which I kind of like). This makes them a good middle ground for some, and too middle-of-the-road for others.

One generic criticism you could levy at them (and dozens of other artists besides) is that they recorded and rerecorded way too much stuff across many different labels, and so sifting through it all to come up with the actual cream of Marriner's Mozart perhaps takes some effort. But it all probably achieves a basic level of quality.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

EvaBaron said:


> Who do you like for Mozart? Not meant as hostile but I'm genuinely curious. Even better would be if you could recommend a different conductor for the pieces that are in the movie Amadeus like the 25th symphony, the don Giovanni overture and the 3rd movement of the 22nd piano concerto.


As for conductors, I favor Gardiner, Jacobs, and Bohm.

My primary gripe about the movie's music was that a modern orchestra was used. It would have been so easy to hire a period instrument band.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

I haven't listened to my LPs for quite a while but I treasured a recording of Mozart's 25th and 29th symphonies by Academy of St. Martin in the Fields/Marriner. Perfect weight and texture for these symphonies and depth of interpretation.

Yes, they've recorded an awful lot, but so have other artists.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

One of the great moments during Amadeus. A lot of thought had to have been given to this sequence. I was very moved by it when I first saw the movie and moments like that and the overall presentation of the music along with F. Murray Abraham's acting inspired me to see it 3 more times in the 2 weeks after the movie opened. The less said about the Constanze actress and the decision to make Mozart a total buffoon with that godawful laugh the better.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

> Quote Originally Posted by EvaBaron View Post
> I feel like Marriner takes an HIP approach but with modern instruments which is perfect for Mozart IMO.


I do think Marriner is great, not only Mozart, I have the Argo years box,
the opera recordings he made for Philips and I love his piano concerto recordings with Brendel .


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

I would say mariner is good if you like a middle of the road Mozart conductor. The movie Amadeus requires you to take your history brain out and totally ignore the facts. Mind you the national theatre production was harder to swallow historically in that it presented Mozart as an even worse caricature . Total and utter nonsense


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Bulldog said:


> As for conductors, I favor Gardiner, Jacobs, and Bohm.
> 
> My primary gripe about the movie's music was that a modern orchestra was used. It would have been so easy to hire a period instrument band.


Did you follow classical music in the early-mid 1980s?

Period band Mozart was totally exotic then. There had been a few recordings by the Collegium aureum and Hogwood had began his symphony recordings but period instruments were still somewhat exotic even for Bach and Handel and way out there for Mozart. It would also have been ironic to have a historically very inaccurate movie with a period instrument soundtrack. 

I don't even know if they used older Marriner recordings for the Amadeus OST. I thought I had read that some were his ca. 1970 Argo recordings but he recorded so much Mozart 2-4 times.

When I got into classical music in the 1980s, Marriner's recordings were very popular and broadly recommended, not only Mozart, but also Bach. Maybe not quite, but almost half of the Complete Mozart Edition Philips gave us for the 1991 anniversary must have been Marriner's recordings.

It's usually very high quality and I think some stuff, like the piano concerti with Brendel are still top choices but some of it can also be a bit bland and predictable. I can understand that people found it fresh in the 1970s or even 80s compared to Böhm and other recordings from an earlier time and I also think that after the absurd dominance in the 70s-80s, Marriner might almost be a bit underrated nowadays but for the mature symphonies I'd also pick different recordings; the early symphonies probably hold up quite well (I had a few on LP but not sufficient interest in the music to get Marriner's on CD).


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

I really enjoy Marriner's Mozart. It feels "correct" to me in that he adheres to the "Classical" aesthetic of "balance and emotional restraint". My personal favorite Mozart conductors though are Gardiner for the operas and Mackerras for the symphonies.

As far as the Amadeus soundtrack is concerned, I think Marriner was the correct person to do it because the interpretation was perfectly integrated into the film. Mozart's music was just as important a character in the film as Salieri, Wolfie, and Constanze.

The soundtrack album was #1 on the Billboard Classical Albums Chart, #56 in the Billboard Popular Albums Chart, has sold over 6.5 million copies and received thirteen gold discs, making it one of the most popular classical music recordings of all time. It won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album in 1984 as well. In short, Marriner done good.

As far as the film is concerned, screw the historical inaccuracies, it's one of the greatest films ever made. Eight Oscar wins, eleven nominations. In my humble opinion, music historians who hated the film needed to get their heads out of their rear ends.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

*Neville Marriner* seems to be a rather popular conductor on my local Classical Music station. I seem to hear his name all the time when the DJs mention the conductors ahead of the piece they're playing. Never heard anything he conducted that I hated.

I enjoyed Amadeus, in spite of its historical inaccuracies. I do remember how wonderful the soundtrack sounded, so I guess I'm an unknowing Marriner fan.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

marlow said:


> I would say mariner is good if you like a middle of the road Mozart conductor. The movie Amadeus requires you to take your history brain out and totally ignore the facts. Mind you the national theatre production was harder to swallow historically in that it presented Mozart as an even worse caricature . Total and utter nonsense


It is fun to watch though , harmless entertainment .


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> My primary gripe about the movie's music was that a modern orchestra was used. It would have been so easy to hire a period instrument band.


Given the movie's otherwise great attention to historical accuracy, that gaff really stands out!


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

DaveM said:


> ... and the decision to make Mozart a total buffoon with that godawful laugh the better.


Ruined the movie for me.


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

EdwardBast said:


> Given the movie's otherwise great attention to historical accuracy, that gaff really stands out!


I wasn't "a gaffe" -- it was a design decision, just like having the cast speak modern English.


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

The film was fun but who really cared about the interpretations of the music. They could of used countless recordings and the film goers would be no wiser. Marriner/asmf were always good at this classical stuff, so you not going to go too far wrong. Their presentations were always expertly precise but do not expect any underline emotion in the music because you will be sadly disappointed.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

NoCoPilot said:


> I wasn't "a gaffe" -- it was a design decision, just like having the cast speak modern English.


Whoosh! Uh … not quite on point.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

NoCoPilot said:


> I wasn't "a gaffe" -- it was a design decision, just like having the cast speak modern English.


I do think that often but I do not think there was such a great cast who all can speak other language then English .


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Rogerx said:


> It is fun to watch though , harmless entertainment .


The one thing that annoys me about these things is that people who know nothing take it as history. Rather like they take Braveheart as history or the ignorant take the drivel in the Da Vinci Code as factual. The whole thing was mostly nonsense historically.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

As I said above, to have Hogwood (roughly the only game in town for HIP Mozart in the early 1980s) for the ST would have been very uncommon as original instruments Mozart was fairly exotic. Even 7 years later around the anniversary 1991 modern instruments clearly dominated although by then a lot of HIP Mozart was available or being recorded.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

Joachim Raff said:


> The film was fun but who really cared about the interpretations of the music. They could of used countless recordings and the film goers would be no wiser. Marriner/asmf were always good at this classical stuff, so you not going to go too far wrong. Their presentations were always expertly precise but do not expect any underline emotion in the music because you will be sadly disappointed.


I don't agree, I think they actually do often convey emotion in their interpretations


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## Joachim Raff (Jan 31, 2020)

EvaBaron said:


> I don't agree, I think they actually do often convey emotion in their interpretations


Maybe, but others do have more colourful character in the music. Everyone likes different approaches and all have their merits.


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

I was 14 or 15 when our class got a screening of the Amadeus movie (which was brand new back then) as a desperate means to get some much needed culture into our dumb pubescent heads.
And I vividly remember raising my hand when it was done and start a lengthy and uninvited exposé about all the historical inaccuracies of the movie. I think I even mentioned that it was a total forgery because the music was played by modern, non-HIP orchestras with a complete wrong sound.

In case you're wondering, yes, I'm still fun at parties.


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## EvaBaron (Jan 3, 2022)

RobertJTh said:


> I was 14 or 15 when our class got a screening of the Amadeus movie (which was brand new back then) as a desperate means to get some much needed culture into our dumb pubescent heads.
> And I vividly remember raising my hand when it was done and start a lengthy and uninvited exposé about all the historical inaccuracies of the movie. I think I even mentioned that it was a total forgery because the music was played by modern, non-HIP orchestras with a complete wrong sound.
> 
> In case you're wondering, yes, I'm still fun at parties.


Have you come around to the opinion that non-hip orchestra's are wrong?


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## RobertJTh (Sep 19, 2021)

EvaBaron said:


> Have you come around to the opinion that non-hip orchestra's are wrong?


Absolutely, I was just parroting hipster movie and music reviews back then. I listen to big band Mozart now.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

marlow said:


> The one thing that annoys me about these things is that people who know nothing take it as history. Rather like they take Braveheart as history or the ignorant take the drivel in the Da Vinci Code as factual. The whole thing was mostly nonsense historically.


The number of film biographies and historical films that either ignore the truth, or merely stretch it are countless. Historical figures have been romanticized, or maligned for the sake of dramatic effect.

Yeah, *Braveheart* and *Amadeus* for sure.

*Sully* created drama by making it seem that the pilot was seriously under threat of losing his license by the FAA. That Queen film, *Bohemian Rhapsody*, skirted the issue of Freddie Mercury's bisexuality.

How about *Pocahontas* (Disney, 1995)?
*Amistad* painted John Quincy Adams as staunchly anti-slavery. He opposed it, sure, but his advocacy was lukewarm.
*Pearl Harbor* demonized the Japanese even more than warranted by having them dropping bombs on multiple hospitals.
*Anonymous*, which conspiracizes that Edward de Vere wrote all of Shakespeare's plays.
*The Sound of Music* has the Von Trapp family hiking over the Alps to escape. That would have led them straight to Germany.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Marriner was with Toscanini, Karajan, Bernstein and Ormandy one of the most recorded conductors in history. He was vastly popular and overwhelmingly successful in music from the Renaissance to the middle 20th century. He was as good in Bach and Mozart as in Mahler and John Blow.

Wikipedia modestly says about him: "Sir Neville Marriner, CH, CBE (15 April 1924 - 2 October 2016) was an English violinist and was viewed by some as one of the world's greatest conductors. He founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and his partnership with them is the most recorded of any orchestra and conductor."

He was the perfect conductor to perform Mozart for the movie and everything is of the first rank ... except the idea the _Don Giovanni _was some kind of failure (not Marriner's fault; it was in the play/screen script.) But of course there was never anything between Mozart and Salieri except the inventions of a stage play.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

larold said:


> Marriner was with Toscanini, Karajan, Bernstein and Ormandy one of the most recorded conductors in history. He was vastly popular and overwhelmingly successful in music from the Renaissance to the middle 20th century. He was as good in Bach and Mozart as in Mahler and John Blow.
> 
> Wikipedia modestly says about him: "Sir Neville Marriner, CH, CBE (15 April 1924 - 2 October 2016) was an English violinist and was viewed by some as one of the world's greatest conductors. He founded the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and his partnership with them is the most recorded of any orchestra and conductor."
> 
> He was the perfect conductor to perform Mozart for the movie and everything is of the first rank ... except the idea the _Don Giovanni _was some kind of failure (not Marriner's fault; it was in the play/screen script.) But of course there was never anything between Mozart and Salieri except the inventions of a stage play.


Hear hear, not all his records have to be for everybody's taste but ... he has a lot of fans.


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## Brahmsianhorn (Feb 17, 2017)

Bulldog said:


> My primary gripe about the movie's music was that a modern orchestra was used. It would have been so easy to hire a period instrument band.


They wanted it to sound appealing. Several in the theater audience had probably never heard Mozart before.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

A big-band Mozart 25th was just perfect for the opening of Amadeus:


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

In the weekend we going to watch it again. :angel:


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