Landon’s Salieri: Myth-Busting, Stereotype-Making, and the Narratives of Eighteenth-Century Music

Authors

• Yuhan Tian, Central Conservatory of MusicFollow

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This paper reconsiders H. C. Robbins Landon’s writings on Antonio Salieri, focusing on 1791: Mozart’s Last Year, Mozart: The Golden Years, and Haydn: Chronicle and Works II. It starts from a basic observation: Landon is widely credited with dismantling the story that Salieri poisoned Mozart, yet his books also helped to fix another vivid image of Salieri—as “the arch-intriguer” at the Viennese court. How can the same author both clear away one myth and reinforce another kind of stereotype?

The paper combines close reading with straightforward source criticism and recent work on biography and life-writing. The first section examines 1791, tracing how Landon brings together medical reports, contemporary letters, and contextual explanation to argue against the poisoning story and to place Salieri back among Mozart’s professional colleagues rather than as a melodramatic enemy. The second section turns to passages in The Golden Years and Haydn II where Landon quotes nineteenth-century witnesses such as Mary Novello or characterizes Salieri as an “intriguer”. Here the focus is on tone and framing: how anecdotes and strongly colored labels are introduced, and how little they are sometimes questioned in comparison with the detailed treatment of Mozart’s final illness.

A final section sets Landon’s language alongside later scholarship on Salieri and on the Mozart–Salieri relationship more broadly. This comparison shows how some of Landon’s phrases and narrative habits have been taken over in both academic and popular accounts long after the poisoning story itself ceased to be credible.

Rather than judging Landon’s work as simply successful or flawed, the paper uses his case to reflect on the practice of “corrective” biography in eighteenth-century music studies today. It asks how far musicologists can move beyond familiar plots of genius, rivalry, and intrigue, and what is at stake when we try to rehabilitate a long-maligned figure without simply giving him a new, more acceptable story.

Recommended Citation

Tian, Yuhan (2026) "Landon’s Salieri: Myth-Busting, Stereotype-Making, and the Narratives of Eighteenth-Century Music," HAYDN: Online Journal of the Haydn Society of North America: Vol. 16: Iss. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://remix.berklee.edu/haydn-journal/vol16/iss1/3