Antonio Salieri - Biography, Works, Salieri and Mozart, Recent popularity, Modern references

Composer, born in Verona, NE Italy. He arrived in Vienna at 16, and worked there for the rest of his life, becoming court composer (1774) and Hofkapellmeister (1788). He wrote over 40 operas, an oratorio, and Masses, and became a famous rival of Mozart.

Biography

Raised in a prosperous family of merchants, Salieri studied violin and harpsichord with his brother Francesco, who was a student of Giuseppe Tartini. In 1774, after Gassmann's death, Salieri was appointed court composer by Emperor Joseph II.

Salieri attained an elevated social standing, and was frequently associated with other celebrated composers, such as Joseph Haydn and Louis Spohr.

Salieri was buried in the Matzleinsdorfer Friedhof (his remains were later transferred to the Zentralfriedhof) in Vienna, Austria. In eternal harmonies
your spirit now is dissolved.
He expressed himself in enchanting notes,
now he is floating to everlasting beauty.

Works

During his time in Vienna, Salieri acquired great prestige as a composer and conductor, particularly of opera, but also of chamber and sacred music.

Salieri and Mozart

In Vienna in the late 1780s, Mozart mentioned several "cabals" of Salieri concerning his new opera Così fan tutte. As Mozart's music became more popular over the decades, Salieri's music was largely forgotten. Later allegations gained credence and tarnished Salieri's reputation, although Salieri (close to death) denied killing Mozart. At the beginning of the 19th century, increasing nationalism led to a tendency to transfigure the Austrian Mozart's genius, while the Italian Salieri was given the role of his evil antagonist. Albert Lortzing's Singspiel Szenen aus Mozarts Leben LoWV28 (1832) uses the cliché of the jealous Salieri trying to hinder Mozart's career. In 1772, Empress Maria Theresa made a comment on her preference of Italian composers over Germans like Gassmann, Salieri or Gluck. While Italian by birth, Salieri had lived in imperial Vienna since he was 16 years old and was regarded as a German composer. Salieri saw himself as a German composer, which some of his German letters, operas, cantatas, and songs seem to prove.

The biographer Alexander Wheelock Thayer believes that Mozart's suspicions of Salieri could have originated with an incident in 1781 when Mozart applied to be the music teacher of the Princess of Württemberg, and Salieri was selected instead because of his good reputation as a singing teacher.

Later, when Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro was not well received by either the Emperor Joseph II or by the public, Mozart blamed Salieri for the failure. But at the time of the premiere of Figaro, Salieri was busy with his new French opera Les Horaces.

In addition, when da Ponte was in Prague preparing the production of Mozart's setting of his Don Giovanni, the poet was ordered back to Vienna for a royal wedding for which Salieri's Axur, Re d'Ormus would be performed. For example, Mozart appointed Salieri to teach his son Franz Xaver, and when Salieri was appointed Kapellmeister in 1788, he revived Figaro instead of bringing out a new opera of his own, and when he went to the coronation festivities for Leopold II in 1790 he had no fewer than three Mozart masses in his luggage. Salieri and Mozart even composed a song for voice and piano together, called Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia, which was celebrating the happy return to stage of the famous singer Nancy Storace. Mozart's Davidde penitente K.469 (1785), his piano concerto in E flat major K.482 (1785), the clarinet quintet K.581 (1789) and the great symphony in G minor K.550 had been premiered on the suggestion of Salieri, who even conducted a performance of it in 1791. In his last surviving letter from October 14th 1791, Mozart tells his wife that he collected Salieri and his [Salieri's] mistress in his carriage and drove them both to the opera, and about Salieri's attendance at his opera Die Zauberflöte K 620, speaking enthusiastically: "He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the ouverture to the last choir there was no piece that didn't elicit a bravo or bello out of him [...]"

Salieri's health declined in his later years, and he was hospitalized shortly before his death, attempting suicide on one occasion.

Within a few years after Salieri's death in 1825, Aleksandr Pushkin wrote his "little tragedy" Mozart and Salieri (1831) as a dramatic study of the sin of envy, thus beginning an artistic tradition of poetic license based on Mozart's allegation. Salieri is presented as both in awe and spite for Mozart and his talents, going so far as to renounce God for blessing Mozart, whilst also weeping in disbelief at the sound of the composer's music.

Due largely to Shaffer's play and its movie adaptation, the word "Salieri" has entered colloquialisation to mean a merely competent artist standing in the shadow of a genius, or worse, an incompetent musician.

Recent popularity

In 2003, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli released The Salieri Album, a CD with 13 arias from Salieri's operas, most of which had never been recorded before. Although he has yet to fully re-enter the standard repertory, performances of Salieri's works are progressively becoming more regular occurrences.

Modern references

The popularity of the film Amadeus has helped to make Salieri a well-known name, as shown by the references to him found in popular culture:

In the episode Into the Mystic of the television program Sliders, Maximillian Arturo speaks of his protege, Quinn Mallory, referring to himself as being "like Salieri to his Mozart". In the Simpsons episode Margical History Tour, the story of Salieri and Mozart is told very similarly to that shown in the film Amadeus. At the end of the episode, Lisa states that it is incorrect and that Salieri and Mozart had better relations in their time. In the Family Guy episode Mind over Murder, a teething Stewie Griffin yells to a piano student "E-flat, Salieri!". While the song Rock Me Amadeus by the band Falco does not reference Salieri, a longer, 8 minute version is named the "Salieri Mix". This band has also composed other songs built on themes from Salieri, including "Salieri Strikes Back" and "Warcry of Salieri." In The X-Files, two episodes reference Salieri and Mozart; The functional roles of Mozart and Salieri are instead portrayed by fictional characters Philouza and Sallini, American turn-of-the-century march composers a la John Philip Sousa.