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
Death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart life. Beyond the Salieri theory, other theories involving murder by poison have been put forth, blaming the Masons, Jews, or both. One such theory was the work of Mathilde Ludendorff, wife of the German general Erich Ludendorff. William Stafford (1991) describes such accounts as outlandish conspiracy theories, giving supporting reasons. Stafford (1991:56) described the effort to determine what disease killed Mozart: In the parish register, the entry concerning Mozart's death states he died of "severe miliary fever"; – "miliary" referring to the appearance of millet-sized bumps on the skin. This does not name the actual disease. Mozart had health problems