Dedicated to the author Vera Nabedrik, who inspired me to do this with her poem about Mozart and Salieri.

“Men say:there is no justice upon earth.

But neither is there justica in the Heavens” – this is how Pushkin’s drama “Mozart and Salieri” begins.
Rereading real literature many times, each time you discover something new in it for yourself, or rather, each time it causes feelings and thoughts slightly different from the previous ones.
And now, as if again, I saw this interesting drama and it pulled me into thoughts.
Salieri is not complaining about the lack of “truth” on earth and above! He appeals to God, or to Fate, or to some other “heavenly figure” with a complaint about their INJUSTICE!
“O ye Heavens!
Where,where is justice, when the sacred gift,

When deathless genius comes not to reward

Perfervid love and utter self-denial,

And toils and striving and beseeching prayers,

But puts her halo round a lsck-wit’s skull,

Frivolous idler’s brow?… O Mozart, Mozart!”
Salieri considers it a terrible injustice for “heaven” to have sent genius, the highest degree of talent, not to him, having honestly loved music for many years to a working man. And to some “madman and reveler”, whom he considers Mozart.
Then two red lights flashed in my mind.:
One is that Salieri is mistaken, but with good reason!
Secondly, did Pushkin take HIMSELF as a prototype of Mozart?
About the first “light bulb”.
Salieri sees and hears how EASILY and seemingly “casually” Mozart creates brilliant pieces of music. This is clearly visible in the drama. Mozart goes to a meeting with Salieri to play him a certain “trifle” that came to his mind that night, so, insomnia, so he came up with “something”. This is something, this “trifle” admires Salieri, who is undoubtedly a talented professional in composition. And Mozart, before playing his “something” to him, brings some artisan from a tavern to Salieri, strumming an aria from “The Wedding of Figaro” on the violin, and even laughs at the manner of this game! Mozart, unknowingly, strikes two blows at Salieri’s feelings, but both are of the same quality: frivolity, playfulness, and the frivolity of the CREATOR’s attitude towards his own works!
“Nothing – the merest trifle. One night lazily.

As I was tossing in my sleepless bed,

Into my head came two or three ideas.

Today I wrote them down”
Listen to these words of Mozart with the ears and senses of Salieri!!! “
“You were bringing THIS to me

And you could loiter at a common tevern,

To hear a blind old fidler? God in Heaven!

Mozart, you are unworthy of yourself!”
Here it is, the continuation of Salieri’s opening monologue about the injustice of heaven!
And then:
“You, Mozart, are a god and know it not!
I know it!”
But let’s continue about lightness.
A beautiful ballerina, Maya Plisetskaya, does thirty-two fouettes in Odile’s dance. (“Swan Lake, P.I. Tchaikovsky)
With what ease!
With what grace!
With what brilliance!
And with a smile! Just a “Little Thing.” Odile wanted to spin around… Captivate Prince Siegfried with his beauty and bold confidence in his charm.
But behind this ease, WHAT a hellish job it is, which we do not see and should not see!!!
This is one “lightness”.
But Mozart’s music may be DIFFERENT! He is sincere and simple-minded and tells Salieri the truth about the “trifle” that came to his mind during insomnia! And Salieri, an extraordinary creator himself, understands, feels, yes, this is the terrible injustice of fate that torments him. He works for hours, days, weeks, months on any melody, correcting it. honing, harmoniously combining with the previous and subsequent ones. And Mozart comes along and casually, lightly, without appreciating his own talent, creates a miracle in minutes that Salieri cannot even reach after years of hard work!!!
So, a thought flashed by:  Isn’t there such frivolity, lack of the slightest respect for one’s own work, isn’t this some kind of sign of real talent?
After all, the same ballerina, ask her if it’s REALLY easy to perform thirty-two fouettes, won’t tell us: Oh, a trifle, a trifle, I’ve been doing it since I was three years old without the slightest effort! And it’s true, this lightness is not easy at all!
(About thirty-two fouettes, that is, revolutions. For a long time, this was considered only a privilege of male dancers. The first ballerina who dared such an artistic feat was the Prima Ballerina of the Imperial Theater Matilda Kshesinskaya!)
Why did I think that Pushkin did not portray Mozart and Salieri, but himself in the image of Mozart?
Yes, because he has the same “frivolous lightness”. Pushkin drank, played cards, had fun with friends, and courted women (there are more than one hundred and twenty women on his Don Juan list of “victories”). He died in a provoked duel at the age of 36. WHEN did he manage to write so many wonderful poems, poems, dramas, short stories, and novellas??? But he also wrote articles in newspapers and magazines! But I also had extensive correspondence with my friends! Where did he get the energy and time for ALL THIS??? There is only one answer – a kind of weightless substance of talent, frequent inspiration, when masterpieces appear with divine ease in the shortest physical time period.

Salieri is “right” and wrong in his assessment of Mozart. He says, implicitly, that you can’t learn anything from Mozart.
“Like a cherub

He brings to us some songs of paradise,

And wakins in us children of the dust

A wingless longing – then he flies away!

Well, let him fly away! We’ll speed his going!”
Salieri seems to look plausible: WHAT can remain in the “children of the dust” from the arrival of the deity?
Even if they would really like to LEARN. Genius cannot be learned, Salieri believes, and perhaps Pushkin too.
That’s not true, in my opinion. Mozart left behind wonderful music, listening to which many times, you can awaken in yourself some extraordinary impulses for real creativity. Pushkin’s poetry remains, which is also capable of awakening dormant talent in souls by reading it repeatedly! Talent CAN be learned, that’s the basic mistake of both Salieri and Pushkin. Children learn to walk and talk by looking at adults and listening to them. Children do not learn language consciously, but “instinctively,” as children of animals learn to IMITATE their parents. HYPNOTISM (the ability to be influenced) is the key to developing talent if the mind and soul are open to such imitation. Because when we perceive the works of talents, we unconsciously open synaptic chains of EXTRAORDINARY connections of neurons in our brain!  One, two, three, dozens, thousands of times, and then, in some mysterious way, we begin to create our own extraordinary connections and chains, our unconventional thinking, and TALENT!
And Tchaikovsky’s vibrant music from “Sleeping Beauty” will resound in our minds as the Prince and the Lilac Fairy sail towards the enchanted castle and the MIRACLE of AWAKENING is about to happen!

However, I also remembered Ramona’s sober remark, saying:
“What if the Princess wakes up as stupid? After all, she didn’t get smarter in her sleep…”
 

9 VI 2015

P.S. Several readers in their personal letters to me asked:

If, in your opinion, Pushkin portrayed himself in Mozart, then WHO did he mean in the guise of Salieri?

Dantes, Benckendorff, Emperor Nicholas I, Bulgarin…?

Or some other detractors?

The drama was written in 1830, that is, even before Pushkin’s marriage to Natalia Goncharova, therefore, perhaps, he was not yet familiar with Dantes, Nikolai also did not yet covet the charms of eighteen-year-old Natalia…

In my opinion, the situation here is not so “straightforward”, and Pushkin portrayed himself in the image of Salieri. He seems to be talking to himself in this drama, comparing two features of talent: One “frivolous”, windy and playful, and the other, focused and hardworking, because Salieri in reality was far from mediocre and mediocre; from a young age, he was awarded the personal composer of the Kaiser of Austria. This, and even for a young man who has not reached the age of twenty, is not given just like that, especially since he was not an Austrian, but an Italian.

Pushkin “argues” with himself, pitting two outstanding, but different in the manner of creativity talents. He’s kind of asking you: What is more important?

The lightness, brilliance, and short duration of talent from birth, or its methodical and diligent GRADUAL development through painstaking study of the subject of one’s interest and profession.

After all, Mozart in the drama clearly did not do what Salieri did:

“And craftsmanship

I set up as pedestal of art;

Became the merest craftsman”

“I stifled sounds,

And then dissected music like a corpse,

Checked harmony by algebraic rules;”

Mozart did not even think of doing all this. He just did whatever “came to mind…”

Both characters in the drama are Pushkin, reflecting on the ways of talent.

This is my opinion, not an expert in music, as well as not its historian.