Alexander Pushkin
The genius of Alexander Pushkin was confirmed during his short life (1799 – 1837). And, of course, his great talent and literary courage incurred enough enmity and incomprehension around him.
Pushkin’s tragedy “Mozart and Salieri”, ranked as one of the most famous in the world, turned Antonio Salieri into an envious villain, which he was not. Yet, Pushkin’s plot came from no kind of the poet’s personal grudge to the Italian composer, but rather from his personal comprehension of the tragedy of a genius surrounded by misapprehensions, rancour and envy. In the concert project “The Music of the Great” Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart are put into the habitual outline of Pushkin’s literary structure.
However, the poet’s view is not left without a contradicting reply: the title of Salieri’s work Benedictus bears the double meaning deliberately.
