Cultural English 472 - Amadeus; The Adelsverein; Q&A

Complete Transcript

You’re listening to ESL Podcast’s English Café number 472.

This is English as a Second Language Podcast’s English Café episode 472. I’m your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.

On this Café, we’re going to talk about a movie back in the days when I was in college, 1984. The movie is called Amadeus. We’re also going to talk about an organization that was responsible for bringing a lot of German immigrants to the state of Texas many years ago. And, as always, we’ll answer a few of your questions. Let’s get started.

Our first topic on this Café is a famous popular movie from the early 1980s called Amadeus. The movie Amadeus was directed by a man named Milos Forman. Forman was already a successful Hollywood director at this time. He had directed a movie called One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975 and the movie Hair in 1981. Both of these were very successful, popular movies. It is no surprise, then, that his movie of 1984 – Amadeus – was also popular.

Amadeus tells the story of two eighteenth-century classical composers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, from which we get the name of the movie, and Antonio Salieri. A “composer” is a person who composes or writes songs, writes music. In real life, Mozart and Salieri, according to many historians, were in fact friends. They were colleagues – that is, they both worked in the same area, had similar interests. But this is not the story that we get in the movie.

In the movie, we see a story of two people, one of whom seems to hate the other person. So, not everything in the movie was “historically accurate,” we might say. Now, the story begins in 1823 with Salieri attempting to commit suicide – attempting to kill himself. During the suicide, he says that he murdered Mozart 32 years earlier. This is something that, again, did not happen in real life.

Salieri was taken, in the movie, to a lunatic asylum. A “lunatic” (lunatic) is a crazy person, someone like my neighbor. That’s a lunatic. A “lunatic asylum” (asylum) is a place where you would take someone who is mentally ill. Now, we don’t use the word “lunatic” anymore. We use terms like “mentally ill.” “Lunatic” is an old word for someone who has a mental illness. But in the movie, it’s called a lunatic asylum, and that’s where Salieri is taken.

A “priest,” a Catholic priest, comes to visit Salieri, and Salieri tells the priest his story – how it was that he killed Mozart. From this moment, the film, the movie, begins to show what are called “flashbacks.” A “flashback” (flashback) is a scene in a movie or a novel that happens in the past, at a time earlier than when the story is taking place.

Salieri was an Italian composer who was, in the movie, incredibly religious. He promised God that he would give up everything if God would allow him to compose music for a living and be successful. He did in fact become successful, and the movie then jumps to, from this flashback, Salieri as an adult. Salieri has become a well-known composer and is in fact the personal composer for one of the most powerful political figures of his time, Emperor Joseph the Second.

However, Salieri has to work really hard to compose his music. He loves listening to music, of course, and can appreciate good music, but he really isn’t the most talented composer – that is, he’s not the best composer and he knows it, but he knows what a great composer sounds like. The movie then jumps to the year 1781, when a very young composer named Mozart arrives in the city of Vienna, located in now the country of Austria.

Salieri immediately can tell that Mozart is a great composer. He becomes, therefore, envious of Mozart. “To be envious” (envious) means to be unhappy because of what another person has. Salieri is envious of Mozart’s great talent, his great ability as a composer. He in fact believes that God gave Mozart his incredible talent, and by doing so is, in effect, laughing at Salieri.

Mozart himself is young. He’s immature and, to be honest, in the movie, he’s obnoxious. “To be obnoxious” (obnoxious) means you’re very dislikable. You say and do things that annoy or irritate or anger people. Mozart drinks too much. He laughs too much and he doesn’t seem to take anything seriously. This makes Salieri’s envy even worse, since he is a very serious man who has to work very hard in order to compose his music.

Even though Mozart is a very successful composer, he has lots of financial problems. He is not the world’s best businessman. In the movie, he and his wife spend more money than they earn – than they make – and so, after a few years they have almost no money left. Now, Salieri in the movie takes advantage of this situation. “To take advantage of” means to get a benefit from something, usually in a way that hurts the other person.

Salieri is, in fact, planning his revenge on Mozart. “Revenge” (revenge) is normally the act of hurting someone because they hurt you. Of course, Mozart in the movie doesn’t hurt Salieri, but Salieri feels as though he has been hurt. So, Salieri pretends that he is a rich man asking Mozart to write a piece of music, a particular piece of music called a “requiem.”

A “requiem” (requiem) is a piece of music that is played at a funeral. Now most funerals, most religious ceremonies, don’t have requiems played at them, but that’s the piece of music that is or had been traditionally played at a Catholic Mass of the dead, when someone dies.

“Requiem” is a very old form of music. It’s been around since the very earliest recorded music that we have in Europe. The requiem is called that because the very first word of the first part of the musical composition is “requiem” – Requiem aeternam dona eis. That’s Latin for “Give them eternal peace.” You’re praying to God that those who have died will rest in peace – will have a good afterlife, if you will.

Salieri commissions, or pays for, this requiem to be composed by Mozart, although Mozart doesn’t know that Salieri is the person who is paying him to write it. Salieri plans to kill Mozart when he finishes writing the requiem and then to present the requiem as his own composition. Basically, he’s going to steal Mozart’s work. Mozart, needing the money, accepts the job and attempts to write the requiem at the same time he is composing his new opera.

Mozart works all the time, and in fact stops sleeping and taking care of himself. Because of this, in addition to problems he’s having with his wife, Mozart becomes terribly sick. Eventually, all of the hard work that Mozart is doing to compose both the opera and a requiem take a toll on Mozart. “To take a toll” (toll) means to have a negative effect on you. It’s often used to describe something that happens over a long period of time that causes you to become tired or sick or perhaps even die.

Salieri works with Mozart trying to get him to finish the requiem, but he is unsuccessful. In the movie, Mozart dies – as in real life – before completing the requiem. Nowadays, you can still hear the requiem performed sometimes in a concert hall or in certain Catholic churches during a funeral Mass or a Mass in honor of the dead.

I grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota, and if you go there on November second or sometime during the first week of November, you can hear Mozart’s Requiem at the Catholic church connected to the high school where I went, Saint Agnes. You can hear the Mozart Requiem performed during the traditional Mass of All Souls, a day in which Catholics pray for the dead. Or, if you can’t make it to St. Paul in November, you can probably download it on iTunes – probably a little easier.

At the end of the movie, Salieri realizes that he is left only with his own mediocre talent. “Mediocre” (mediocre) means average, nothing special. You’re not the worst, but you’re not the best. “Mediocre” usually means that you are on the side of being one of the worst even though you’re not the worst. It’s a negative way of describing someone. If you describe someone’s work as mediocre, you are saying that it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t very good, either.

The movie Amadeus won eight Oscars, or Academy Awards, in 1985, including best picture, best director, best actor – that was F. Murray Abraham, who played Salieri – best writing, and best costume design. The actor who played Mozart, Tom Hulce, was also nominated for the best actor award.

The film was shown again in theaters – rereleased, we would say – in 2002 with 20 additional minutes of film. That’s something that Hollywood does a lot. They’ll take a popular film and then they’ll put it in the movie theaters again and add some of the things that were cut out of the movie originally. Usually there was a good reason why certain parts of the movie didn’t make it into what is called the “final cut,” the final version that is first shown to the public.

Although not entirely true – in fact, most of it is not true – the movie did bring the story of this most famous and wonderful composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to people’s attention. Mostly, though, it’s just an entertaining piece of fiction.

Let’s stay in that same general time period for our next topic on the Café, which deals with people who, like Mozart, also spoke German. Mozart, of course, was born in what is now modern-day Austria. Now we’re going to talk about people born in Germany who came to the United States – specifically, to the state of Texas. Texas is located in the south-central part of the United States on the border of Mexico.

The story of how the German immigrants came to the United States is, to me, quite interesting. In April of 1842, 21 men from a German village, a German town called Biebrich, which is located on the Rhine River in Germany, started an organization called “Adelsverein.” (How’s my German? Pretty bad, right? Well, you can look at the notes for the Café to see what I’m saying.)

That word in German means “a group of aristocrats.” An “aristocrat” (aristocrat) is a person usually who is a member of an upper level of society, often with some sort of royal title like Duke or Earl. The goal of this organization, however, was twofold – there were two main reasons for the organization. First, it was to get as many German people as possible to emigrate to the United States and to live together in a new community that was started in the state of Texas.

“To emigrate” (emigrate) means to leave the country where you are a citizen – where you were born, usually – and move to a new country and live there permanently. “To emigrate” means to go from one country to another. “To immigrate” (immigrate) means to come into the country. So, it’s the same action. It just depends on whether you are thinking of it as someone leaving a country or coming into a country.

The second goal or purpose of this new organization was to create what we might call a “market” for German goods in the United States, for German products. A “market” here refers to a group of people that would be interested in buying things from a particular company, or in this case, from a particular country. In May of 1842, two members of the group went to Texas to negotiate with the then-president of Texas.

Now, this is a little strange if you don’t know American history very well, but there was a short time when Texas was its own country. It had split from Mexico to the south but had not yet joined the United States. Eventually Texas would join the United States and become a state of the U.S. However, at this time – in the 1840s – it had not yet done so. So, it had its own president. The president of Texas offered land to these Germans in the western part of Texas.

Now, in many cases the leaders, the political leaders, of new territories or countries in the New World, in the Americas, tried to get people from Europe to come and live in this new territory, these new lands. That’s what the president of Texas was doing. Now unfortunately, he didn’t give the Germans very good land. There wasn’t really much in western Texas at this time. The Native Americans, the American Indians, were living in many of these territories, and they weren’t particularly happy to just give up their lands to the immigrating Germans.

So, the Germans knew they would basically have to fight their way in order to establish this new German community. They decided, “Nah, we don’t really want the land. We don’t want to fight for it.” Instead, they bought land near Round Top, Texas, which is about 340 kilometers south of modern-day Dallas. These Germans hoped that this would be a place where the German emigrants would come to live.

In 1843, the organization used $80,000 – which was a lot of money back then, and still is – to buy more land in Texas to build a settlement for the Germans. A “settlement” is an area that has houses and buildings – basically, a community. The head of the organization, Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels, went to Texas to buy the land and to arrange for the first immigrants to arrive. However, it was not until December of 1844 that the Germans began arriving in Texas.

Over the next few years, the organization would buy more and more land and bring in more and more emigrants from Germany. They created a settlement called “Fredericksburg,” which was located about 75 miles northwest of the original settlement of New Braunfels. From October 1845 to April of 1846, 5,000-plus new immigrants arrived in Texas from Germany through this organization. A year later, in 1847, five new towns or settlements were created.

After 1847, however, just a few years really after the organization began, it had some financial problems and did not create any more new settlements. In fact, in 1853, the company had to give the additional land that it owned to creditors. “Creditors” (creditors) are people or companies to whom you owe money. You borrow money from people or you buy things from people then you have to give the money back, or you have to give the money to pay for the things that they have given you. Those are your creditors.

Well, the organization disappeared in 1853. However, during the years in which it existed, it was in operation, it helped more than 7,000 Germans go to Texas. And to this day, you can still see some of the influence of German culture in these towns, in these areas. In fact, some of the largest and most popular German celebrations, festivals, in the United States are in Texas.

Of course, there was German immigration to many different parts of the United States, including my home state, Minnesota, which is north of Texas at the opposite end of the country on the border with Canada. My relatives – my great-great-grandfather, maybe my great-great-great-great-grandfather – came from Germany.

So, German influence on American culture has always been large in many ways, but it’s particularly interesting in Texas because Germans, in addition to settling in Texas, also lived in northern Mexico, and some of the popular music of modern Mexico was influenced by the German musical tastes and forms. In particular, an instrument – a musical instrument that’s often associated with German music, traditional German music – the accordion, is quite popular in certain types of Mexican music today.

Now let’s answer some of the questions you have sent to us.

Our first question comes from Henry (Henry) in El Salvador. Henry wants to know how to use, two different words in English: “neither” (neither) and “nor” (nor). “Neither” (which can be pronounced with a long “e” or with a long “i,” as in “neither” – they mean the same thing either way) means not the one nor the other of two people or two things. Another way of saying “neither” is to separate it into two words: “not either.”

So, you have A and you have B. Let’s say A and B are two cats, just as an example. I say to you, “I don’t want either cat.” I could also say, “I want neither of them” – neither cat do I want. “Neither,” then, means not this one nor that. Now, notice I use the word “nor.” “Neither” can be used by itself. Someone may say to you, “Do you want this one or that one?” You say “Neither,” or “I want neither.” “Nor” has to be used with “neither.” So, you can say just “neither,” or you can add the word “nor.”

You can say, “I want neither this one nor that one.” If you are actually giving the names of the things that you don’t want (or the cats that you don’t want, in my case), you use “neither” in front of the first thing and “nor” in front of the second thing. “Neither” and “nor” are used to combine two negative statements into one. It could just be two things that you don’t want to do. You could say, “I neither want to go to the beach nor go to the movies. I don’t want to do either of those things. I want to do neither.”

Now, a minute ago I said that “nor” always appears with the word “neither,” but that’s actually not quite true. There is a case where you can use “nor” by itself: if you begin a sentence with “nor” following another negative sentence. Let me give you an example. “I don’t want to go to the beach. Nor do I want to go to the movie.” That’s a case where you could use “nor” without the word “neither.” So, it’s a little confusing. It’s one of those things that you just pick up the more English you hear and the more English you read.

Nina (Nina) from Germany – she has not yet moved to Texas, I guess – wants to know the meaning of the word “earworm” (earworm).Well, let’s start with the word “worm” (worm). A worm is a small animal that travels along the ground. It usually moves back and forth, in and out of dirt. It’s not very large, often just a couple of inches long. That’s a worm.

An “earworm” is sort of a funny word that was created not too long ago to refer to certain music or certain expressions that you hear that go into your head going through your ears, and you can’t seem to forget them. It could be part of a song – sometimes, you know, there are songs that are, we might say, “stuck in your head.” In fact, there was a researcher who I know, Tim Murray, who did an article for a scientific journal about this several years ago, the “song stuck in my head” phenomenon.

These are musical passages – parts of songs – that you can’t seem to get rid of. In fact, you don’t even want to remember them, but all of a sudden you will start singing that song or humming that song. “To hum” a song you don’t actually sing the words. You just go something like: [humming].
You know that one? That’s a good example of an earworm – a song that you don’t even like, but somehow you just can’t seem to forget. I was just then humming a song that was popular last year in the United States called “Call Me Maybe.” I listen to that song all the time on my iPod, seriously. I love it. Another example would be an expression such as “souvenir medallions, souvenir medallions.” You hear that enough and eventually you will not be able to forget it.

There’s actually a similar phenomenon related to this idea called the “din (din) in the head” that relates to language acquisition. When you are acquiring a language, when you are picking up a new language, you will often experience words or phrases in that language that just seem to come to you without you even trying to think of them. You may be walking down the street or driving your car, and suddenly these expressions will come to you, or even the music of the language, the way the language sounds, will somehow come to you.

There are several studies about this, actually, including a few that I have done. So, it’s an interesting phenomenon to me, particularly.

Anyway, our final question comes from Amir (Amir) in Iran. Amir wants to know the meaning of a word: “badass” (badass). He saw this on a television program. There was a show called Badass Animals. Well, “badass” is somewhat of a vulgar word. (I guess it used to be a vulgar word. It isn’t a vulgar word anymore.) It’s made up of two words, “bad,” which is not good, and “ass,” which refers to your butt. Now, “ass” is still considered somewhat of a vulgar word, and you wouldn’t want to use that word in the company of someone you didn’t know well.

A “badass,” however is, strangely enough, a positive way of describing someone. “To be a badass” means to be very strong, to be aggressive. It’s a positive thing. It’s not a negative thing. Badass Animals, I would guess, would be animals that are were very tough, that were very aggressive. It can sometimes be used simply to mean excellent. That use is a little less common nowadays; maybe 20 years ago that was a more common way of using this word.

Personally, I don’t use the word. I don’t particularly like the word, maybe because I grew up in a period where, if you used any word with “ass” in it, it would be quite probable that your parents would be very unhappy with you, but that’s the meaning of “badass” and “Badass Animals.”

From Los Angeles, California, I’m Jeff McQuillan. Thank you for listening. Come back and listen to us again right here on the English Café.

Glossary

composer – a person who writes music, especially professionally

* Beethoven was a gifted composer known especially for his symphonies.

lunatic asylum – an old-fashioned word for a hospital for the mentally ill, where they are carefully watched and cared for by special doctors and nurses

* The movie One Flew Over a Cuckoo’s Nest is set in a lunatic asylum where the patients all have different mental problems.

flashback – a scene in a TV show, movie, story, or novel that happens in the past or a time earlier than when the rest of the movie is set

* As the main character talked about his childhood, the film director used flashbacks to show audiences what he looked like as a child.

envious – feelings of unhappiness because of wanting what another person has

* As Giselle talked about the incredible trip she took around the world, many of her friends were envious that she was able to afford such a vacation.

revenge – the hurting of someone because he or she had hurt one in the past

* In murder mysteries, revenge is often the reason why one person kills another.

requiem – a piece of music that is played as part of a church service honoring a person who has died

* As the requiem played, everyone in the church stood as a sign of respect.

to take a toll – to be harmful or to have a negative effect on something or someone

* Alexei’s frequent traveling was beginning to take a toll on his social life. He was never around to spend time with his friends.

mediocre – average; not special

* The food at the restaurant was mediocre and certainly not worth the high prices the restaurant charged.

to emigrate – to move out of the country a person was born in and to move to a new country to live permanently

* During the potato famine of the 1800s, many people emigrated from Ireland to the United States in search of food and jobs.

market – an area or group interested in buying or having certain goods or services

* In the 1980s, there was a very large market in the United States for Japanese electronic goods, such as the Sony Walkman.

settlement – an area where people establish a community where one has not existed before

* The people who built the settlement knew that more people would choose to move there if the community had good stores and services.

creditor – a person or company that another person or company has borrowed money from and now owes money to

* Shin owed a lot of money to creditors because of the many loans he had taken out to start his restaurant business.

neither – not the one nor the other of two people or things; not either

* My girlfriend neither liked the movie not disliked it. She said it was okay.

nor – used before the second of two or more alternatives to indicate that they are each untrue or did not occur

* I neither hid nor destroyed your work. It’s right here on your desk under these files.

earworm – a song or melody that keeps repeating in one’s mind long after hearing it

* The worst part of working in a record store is developing earworms, especially for songs I don’t like.

badass – an informal but positive term used to refer to an aggressive, strong person; a term used to describe someone with high level of skill at a particular activity

* Jim thought of himself as a badass, but he was beaten badly in his first boxing match.

What Insiders Know

The Boston Pops Orchestra

The Boston Pops Orchestra was created to “specialize in” (concentrate on) playing light classical and popular music. It’s “conductor” (leader of a band or orchestra), Henry Lee Higginson, wanted to make classical music more popular with Americans. The first concert was held in 1885 and included performances in light classical music, and “tunes” (pieces of music) from current musical theater successes.

From 1885 to 1930, the Boston Pops Orchestra had 17 different conductors. In 1930, it “appointed” (assigned to a job or position) Arthur Fiedler as the its 18th conductor. Under Fiedler, the Boston Pops Orchestra became much more popular, reaching places all around the country through radio and television.

Traditionally, classical music was associated with the “affluent” (wealthy people; the rich) people who attended its concerts. Fiedler, unhappy with this “notion” (concept; idea), made efforts to bring classical music to the public. He began conducting a series of free concerts. In addition to playing classical music, Fiedler also had the orchestra play tunes from popular music, creating a new “niche” (type; classification of something) of “symphonic” (played by an orchestra) popular music.

The Boston Pops started to record music and sold more than any other orchestra in the world. Their first recordings were made in July of 1935, which included a complete recording of the famous composer George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Fiedler also began the “annual” (yearly; every year) tradition of the Fourth of July Pops concert and “fireworks display” (the launching of devices in the air that explode into pleasing patterns of light). This annual performance, which was later show on television, became associated with Independence Day celebrations all over the country.

Arthur Fiedler died in 1979 after 50 years as conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra. Fiedler was “succeeded by” (followed by in a job or position) “noted” (well known and respected) film composer John Williams. Williams continued some of the things that Fiedler began, taking classical music to new audiences.