Power and danger of fantasizing the history

 Power of fantasizing the history

Today any work, a movie, a book etc., seem to  claims based on a real story/incidents, or real characters in the history .. this seems to be a hot cake, irrespective of authenticity. This reminds me of something about an Italian composer called Antonio Salleri, who was a top composer of his times.

We all know Wolfgang Amedeus Mozhart , simply known as mozhart , considered greatest western classical composer. The two other composers of his time are Beethoven and Bach .. all 3 of them were celebrated composers. Antonio salleri is also well known but for wrong reasons., all above 3 were his students and he was a court composer in Vienna (like asthana vidvamsudu). He taught Beethoven for sure, taught and collaborated with mozhart for sure, Bach may be in a different area , they may have met but not sure if he was a student too. 

There was a very different relationship mozhart and Salleri maintained, there seems to be lot of proof from letters etc.,that Salleri didn't accept Mozhart's genius and may have had professional jealousy. Following Mozhart's death, rumours started that Salleri slowly poisoned him out of professional jealousy and used his authority to extract great last symphony from him (requium) at the same time. It was made in to popular media, stories and plays etc., people almost forgot Salleri as a great musician himself and his name became more like a villian of a story, so Mozhart's fame continued to rise and Salleri's reputation fell. While professional rivalry seems true, the poisoning story was entirely false.  It seems someone named Alexander wrote a play on mozhart and Salleri (Amadeus) ‘metaphorically’ using the word poison in a sense that Mozhart's career suffered due to Salleri not allowing or blocking his chances , later that story was believed widely and turned  in to a literally poisoning story, where Salleri appoints a maid to serve poison to Mozhart. 

Salleri's music was never celebrated entire 19th century. 

In 1980's it was made in to a movie 'Amadeus' which was well made, it got 40 oscars.. including to the person who played Salleri's role, it was based on the same fantasy story. (I think the same may be inspiration for 'swathi kiranam' )

Then people started looking in to the details, thanks to rational mindset of 20th century.. now the truth is known that Salleri didn't poison mozhart for sure and even professional rivalry is half true.. it seems they both had difficulties for sure, but they respected each other's work and even worked together. Now it's not to say Salleri didn't trouble mozhart, he couldn't accept mozhart and used his authority at times.. but that's not equal to being cruel.. we see it everyday even in modern times where boss wants to take credit, make sure the junior doesn't raise above him etc. In truth, both of them died of either of disease, depression and alcoholism. After the movie came, people started looking at Salleri's work also and recognized him too as great composer who in fact taught Beethoven and other great composers.

So it is extremely dangerous to believe whatever comes in movies as true. Someone who is writing stories using the real people in history.. it will be good to be authentic and write proven facts than pure fantasy.