around, doing tricks like a circus freak?"
How could I tell him...
...what music meant to me?
While my father prayed earnestly to God...
... to protect commerce...
... I would offer up...
... secretly...
... the proudest prayer a boy could think of.
"Lord,make me a great composer."
"Let me celebrate your glory through music...
... and be celebrated myself."
"Make me famous through the world."
"Make me immortal."
"After I die...
...let people speak my name with love for what I wrote."
"In return...
...I will give you my chastity...
...my industry...
...my deepest humility, every hour of my life."
"Amen."
And do you know what happened?
A miracle!
My life changed forever.
I knew God had arranged it all. That was obvious.
One minute I was a frustrated boy...
...in an obscure little town. The next I was here...
...in Vienna,city of musicians...
... and Emperor Joseph, the musical king.
In a few years,I was his court composer. Isn't that incredible?
Every night I sat with the emperor of Austria...
... playing duets with him...
... correcting the royal sight-reading.
Actually,the man had no ear at all.
But what did it matter?
He adored my music.
Tell me...
If you had been me...
...wouldn't you have thought God had accepted your vow?
And believe me,I honored it.
I was a model of virtue.
I kept my hands off women.
I worked hours every day teaching students,many for free!
Sitting on endless committees to help poor musicians.
Work,that was all my life.
And it was wonderful.
Everybody liked me.
I liked myself.
Until he came.
He came to Vienna to play some of his music...
...at the residence of the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg.
Eagerly,I went there to seek him out.
That night...
... changed my life.
As I wandered through the salon...
... I played a little game with myself.
This man had written his first concerto at the age of 4...
... his first symphony at 7, a full-scale opera at 12!
Did it show?
Is talent like that...
... written on the face?
Which one of them...
... could he be?
Mozart is not here.
- Stop it! - I am.
- Stop it! - I am stopping it.
I am! I'm stopping it. Slowly.
There. You see? I've stopped.
- Now we're going back. - No!
Yes! You don't know where you are.
Here,everything goes backwards.
People walk and dance and sing and even talk backwards.
- That's stupid. - Why? People fart backwards.
Ssa-ym-ssik!
Ssa-ym-ssik!
Yes,you are. You are very sick.
No! Say it backwards,shitwit!
Ssa-ym-ssik.
Ssik,kiss.
Ym,my. Ssa.
Kiss my ass.
Em-yrram!
- I'm not playing! - Say it,it's serious.
It's very serious.
Yrram.
Marry me.
I'm not gonna marry you. You're a fiend.
Uoy-evol-I-tub.
Tub.
But I...
...love...
But I love you?
- Tihs-ym-tae. - What?
- Eat. - Eat.
- Ym,my. - My.
Tihs. Eat my shit.
You filthy fiend!
You filthy...!
My music.
They've started without me.
That was Mozart!
That giggling,dirty creature I'd just seen crawling on the floor.
- I think that went well,don't you? - Indeed.
The Viennese know good music, don't you think?
Certainly.
Your Grace.
Ah,Mozart.
- Why? - Why what,sir?
Why do I have to be humiliated in front of my guests...
...by one of my own servants?
The more license I allow you, the more you take.
If His Grace is not satisfied, he can dismiss me.
I wish you to return immediately to Salzburg.
- Your father is waiting for you there. - No,Your Grace!
I would prefer you dismissed me. It's obvious I don't satisfy.
I have no intention of dismissing you. You will remain in my service...
...and learn your place.
On the page it looked...
Nothing!
The beginning simple,almost comic.
Just a pulse.
Bassoons,basset horns...
...like a rusty squeezebox.
And then,suddenly...
...high above it...
...an oboe.
A single note,hanging there, unwavering.
Until...
...a clarinet took it over...
...sweetened it into a phrase of such delight.
This was no composition by a performing monkey.
This was a music I had never