Antonio Salieri (1750-1825)
- Orgelkonzert C-Dur (1773)
Performers: Anton Gansberger (organ); Leondinger Symphony Orchestra
---
Italian composer, mainly active in Vienna. Born in Legnago in the
Veneto, he studied violin and keyboard with his brother Francesco and
with a local organist, Giuseppe Simoni. After the deaths of his parents
between 1763 and 1765 he was taken to Venice, where his musical
education continued. The Viennese composer F.L. Gassmann, in Venice to
oversee the production of his opera Achille in Sciro in 1766, noticed
Salieri's talent and ambition and took the youth back to Vienna with
him. Under Gassmann's direction he began an intensive programme of
musical training. Described by his student Anselm Hüttenbrenner as ‘the
greatest musical diplomat’, Salieri won the friendship of people who
could help him build a career. Having earned Gassmann's paternal
affection, he developed close relations with Metastasio, Gluck and
Joseph II. Opportunities to write operas soon offered themselves to
Salieri. His success in Vienna owed much to the support of Joseph II,
who was also helpful to him in Italy and France through his influence
with his brothers Leopold (Grand Duke of Tuscany) and Ferdinand
(governor of Lombardy) and his sister Marie Antoinette. As early as 1771
Joseph sent a copy of Armida to Leopold, reporting that it had been
performed with great success in Vienna. The following year he asked
Leopold about the possibility of Salieri writing an opera for Florence.
When Gassmann died in 1774 Joseph appointed Salieri his successor as
Kammerkomponist, an appointment that led to his also being made, at only
24 years of age, Gassmann's successor as music director of the Italian
opera in Vienna. Between 1778 and 1780 he wrote five operas for theatres
in Milan. In 1780 Joseph II commissioned him to write a Singspiel to be
performed by the Nationaltheater's German troupe: one of only two
operas in German by Salieri, Der Rauchfangkehrer (1781) enjoyed
considerable success until it was overshadowed by Mozart's Die
Entführung aus dem Serail. Salieri's exploration of operatic genres
continued in 1782. Gluck, too weak to undertake the composition of a
work commissioned by the Paris Opéra, handed the commission to Salieri.
Armed with a letter of recommendation from Joseph, he went to Paris for
the first time to oversee the production of Les Danaïdes (1784). Its
success led to commissions for two more French operas, and during the
rest of the decade Salieri divided his time and energy between composing
tragédie lyrique in Paris and opera buffa in Vienna. The second of his
French operas, Les Horaces, failed when it was given in 1786, but the
following year he achieved one of his greatest operatic triumphs with
Tarare, on a libretto by Beaumarchais. Returning to Vienna in 1784 after
the première of Les Danaïdes, Salieri busied himself with composing and
directing Italian comic operas at the Burgtheater. In February 1788
Joseph granted the position of Hofkapellmeister to Salieri, who had
frequently acted in that capacity since 1775 for the ailing Giuseppe
Bonno. Salieri succeeded Bonno in March 1788. He remained in this office
until his retirement in 1824, his tenure the longest in the history of
the Hofmusikkapelle. The 1790s left Salieri without the steadfast
patronage of Joseph II, without the opportunity to write operas for
Paris (cut off from him by the Revolution), without the theatrical
talent of Da Ponte and without the stimulating rivalry of Mozart.
Salieri's last complete opera, Die Neger, was given to sparse applause
in 1804. As Hofkapellmeister, Salieri attended closely to the selection
of new instrumentalists and singers, filling such posts as organ
builder, overseeing the acquisition of instruments and keeping the music
library in good order. Hofkapelle records for the period from 1820 to
Salieri's retirement in 1824 show that for regular services under his
direction he most frequently chose masses by Albrechtsberger, Joseph and
Michael Haydn, Georg Reutter the younger, Eybler, Leopold Hofmann and
Mozart. Salieri, who benefited so much from his teachers and mentors,
devoted much of his energy to teaching, especially after retiring from
operatic composition.
Cap comentari:
Publica un comentari a l'entrada