fictional biography of its composer. In it, Antonio Salieri notices how Mozart composed the opera while tortured after the death of his imposing father Leopold, and uses the information to psychologically torture Mozart even further. Don Giovanni and other composers The sustained popularity of Don Giovanni has resulted in extensive borrowings and arrangements of the original. The most famous and probably the most musically substantial is the operatic fantasy, Réminiscences de Don Juan by Franz Liszt. The minuet from the finale of act 1, transcribed by Moritz Moszkowski, also makes an incongruous appearance in the manuscript of Liszt's Fantasy on Themes from Mozart's Figaro and Don Giovanni, and Sigismond Thalberg uses the same minuet, along with "", in his , Op. 42. Thalberg also included a piano arrangement of "Il mio tesoro" in his , Op. 70. "" also makes an appearance in the Klavierübung of Ferruccio Busoni, under the title (Variation study after Mozart). Schumann included a piano arrangement of "Vedrai carino" in his , which was originally intended for his Album for the Young. Chopin wrote Variations on "Là ci darem la mano" (the duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina) for piano and orchestra. Beethoven and Danzi also wrote variations on the same theme. And Beethoven, in his Diabelli Variations, cites Leporello's aria "" in variation 22. Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart used minuet from the finale to act 1 ("Signor, guardate un poco") for his "" for piano Op. 2, and János Fusz used the same theme for a set of variations for four hands (Op. 10). The turkeys in Chabrier's "Ballade des gros dindons" (1889) finish each verse imitating the mandolin accompaniment of the Serenade. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky always regarded Don Giovanni – and its composer – with awe. In 1855, Mozart's original manuscript had been purchased in London by the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, who was the teacher of Tchaikovsky's one-time unofficial fiancée Désirée Artôt (whom Viardot may have persuaded not to go through with her plan to marry the composer). Viardot kept the manuscript in a shrine in her Paris home, where it was visited by many people. Tchaikovsky visited her when he was in Paris in June 1886, and said that when looking at the manuscript, he was "in the presence of divinity". So it is not surprising that the centenary of the opera in 1887 would inspire him to write something honouring Mozart. Instead