Gatos

Gatos appear in two contrasting musical and theatrical images: Mozart and Constanze play at cat and mouse, while Salieri later treats the cats singing in his courtyard as a wry measure of musical decline. Together, these appearances make the animals a comic motif through which the drama links physical play, musical taste, and Salieri’s judgments about his age.

The Cat-and-Mouse Game

In the library, Constanze enters running and pretends to be a mouse, hiding beneath the pianoforte. Mozart pursues her as a cat: he crouches on all fours, stalks her across the floor, and announces his intention to pounce and devour his “little mouse.” The chase brings the pair close to Salieri, who sits concealed in an armchair with a dish of mascarpone cream. The scene gives the cat image a literal theatrical form, built from pursuit, hiding, and playful threat; Mozart and Constanze are acting as animals rather than being described as actual cats and a mouse.

Cats as Musical Critics

Later, in his salon, Salieri says he has been listening to cats singing in the courtyard. He associates their present-day musical taste with Rossini and jokes that cats, like composers, have degenerated: what they appreciate now is the high C, just as the rest of the audience does. His comparison turns the cats into a comic stand-in for listeners whose preferences, in his view, favor a conspicuous high note over more demanding musical judgment.

Scarlatti’s Cat and the Contrast of Taste

To sharpen the contrast, Salieri recalls that Domenico Scarlatti had a cat able to walk across a piano keyboard and select themes suitable for a fugue. He distinguishes that animal as an Enlightenment-era Spanish cat that valued counterpoint from the cats of his own day, who supposedly care only for the high C. The contrast is Salieri’s anecdote and judgment, not an independently confirmed account of feline musical ability. Its function is to make his complaint about contemporary taste vivid: even the imagined musical discernment of an earlier cat exceeds what he attributes to modern cats and audiences.