Amadeus episodes directed by Peter Leslie Wilde and narrated by F. Murray Abraham as Salieri (re-broadcast 24 May – 2 June 2010 on BBC Radio 7). Amadeus Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer, which gives a highly fictionalized account of the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri. First performed in 1979, "Amadeus" was inspired by a short 1830 play by Alexander Pushkin called "Mozart and Salieri" (which was also used as the libretto for an opera of the same name by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1897). In the play, significant use is made of the music of
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart listeners and performers. These developments were not witnessed by Mozart's father, who had died on 28 May 1787. In December 1787, Mozart finally obtained a steady post under aristocratic patronage. Emperor Joseph II appointed him as his "chamber composer", a post that had fallen vacant the previous month on the death of Gluck. It was a part-time appointment, paying just 800 florins per year, and required Mozart only to compose dances for the annual balls in the Redoutensaal (see "Mozart and dance"). This modest income became important to Mozart when hard times arrived. Court records show that Joseph's aim was