On today’s date in 1979 a new play titled “Amadeus” opened at the National Theatre in London.

Peter Schaffer’s play retold the story of Mozart’s final years in Vienna, and the posthumous gossip that somehow it was the petty jealousy and back-stabbing intrigue of Mozart’s Italian contemporary Antonio Salieri that hastened Mozart’s untimely demise. There was even a Romantic legend that Salieri had actually poisoned Mozart, to which Shaffer gave his own psychological spin.

Music historians were quick to attack Shaffer’s play as wildly inaccurate and downright unfair to poor old Salieri, whom they defended as not all that bad a fellow. Accurate or not, Schaffer’s play was a big hit, and five years later was made into a wildly successful film. That movie version of “Amadeus” prompted millions of new converts to 18th century music to snap up any copies of Mozart’s “Requiem” they could find. Some of the new converts were even lured into concert halls to attend live performances of Mozart’s music—even if they weren’t allowed to eat popcorn while doing so.

And what about the Music Historians? They couldn’t even find comfort in the old public relations adage, “There’s no such thing as bad press as long as they spell your name right!” According to them, even Schaffer’s title was bogus. Mozart never signed his middle name “Amadeus,” in fact preferring the French version, “Amadé.”