Music of a Man Who Didn't Kill Mozart

AP via CNN website ^ | 18 Feb 2004 | AP staffer

[VadeRetro]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Forget the movie, Cecilia Bartoli says. Antonio Salieri isn't the bad guy who poisoned Mozart. He's an underappreciated genius who paved the path for Beethoven.

Following hit recordings of works by Vivaldi and Gluck, Bartoli is touring the United States to support her latest project, "The Salieri Album," which contains 13 arias from the seldom-heard composer. Some of the pieces were so obscure that they had to be found in a Vienna library -- only two of the arias had ever been recorded.

[VadeRetro]

In other news, something is either crawling into or out of Cecilia Bartoli's dress.

[dead]

Antonio Salieri isn't the bad guy who poisoned Mozart.

Yeah, right.

Movies don’t lie.

[dead]

Oh, and "F!" Murray Abraham.

[VadeRetro]

Movies don’t lie.

All the history I know, I learned from the movies. (Man, am I confused!)

[VadeRetro]

Anyway, the real question for this thread is "What is that thing ducking into or being hatched from C.B.'s ample bosom?"

[billorites]

Damn, I'm late for my dermabrasion...

[dead]

It's a porcelain frog with "Uncle Martin" antennas.

Duh!

[Argh]

I should be so lucky.

[steveo]

Hey, it's that chick from star trek...

[Petronski]

I thought this was a picture of
Counsellor Troi being attacked
by a lobster.

[Ken H]

"I did not poison that composer, Mr. Mozart."

[VadeRetro]

She carries a pet scorpion for luck and to deter molesters.

[sharktrager]

NEW YORK (AP) -- Forget the movie, Cecilia Bartoli says. Antonio Salieri isn't the bad guy who poisoned Mozart. He's an underappreciated genius who paved the path for Beethoven.

Following hit recordings of works by Vivaldi and Gluck, Bartoli is touring the United States to support her latest project, "The Salieri Album," which contains 13 arias from the seldom-heard composer. Some of the pieces were so obscure that they had to be found in a Vienna library -- only two of the arias had ever been recorded.

"It was very interesting to learn for the first time who Salieri was as composer, as a man also, without being influenced by the movie, by Pushkin's story or the Shaffer piece," she said during a quick trip to New York last November.

The rumor that Salieri poisoned Mozart has been around since Mozart's death in 1791 but is widely discredited. Still, Alexander Pushkin wrote about it in "Mozart and Salieri" in 1830, and Peter Shaffer adapted the tale for "Amadeus," his 1979 play that became a Milos Forman film five years later. (F. Murray Abraham won the best-actor Oscar for playing Salieri.)

"It was a great movie, but a lot of people think it's true," Bartoli said. "That's unbelievable."

So who was Antonio Salieri?

Born in Legnano, Italy, in 1725, he moved to Vienna, Austria, became a close friend of Gluck, taught Beethoven, Liszt and Schubert, and wound up in an insane asylum before his death in 1825.

He wrote more than three dozen operas, including "L'Europa Riconosciuta," which opened the Teatro alla Scala in 1778 and is tentatively scheduled to reopen the Milanese opera mecca come December 7. Volkmar Baunbehrens wrote a Salieri biography titled "Maligned Master."

"It was not supposed to be Salieri that opened La Scala," Bartoli said. "It was supposed to be Gluck. But since Gluck was busy in France, he suggested this great pupil."

Saying 'Wow!'

Antonio Salieri
Salieri's music is perfect for Bartoli, a 37-year-old mezzo-soprano with an unmatched coloratura technique. After gaining attention for her performances of Rossini and Mozart, Bartoli veered into baroque music with "The Vivaldi Album," which won a Grammy in 2001, and "Dreams & Fables -- Gluck Italian Arias," which won another Grammy the following year.

While working on the second recording, she discovered Salieri. Conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt invited her to sing a program of Salieri's "Prima la musica, poi le parole" and Mozart's "Die Schauspieldirektor."

"I didn't know the piece at all, so I started looking, studying the score. I said, 'Wow!' " Bartoli recalled. "I knew this man, of course, through Gluck, but I didn't know the composer at all. Believe it or not, the big success was for Salieri, which is quite astonishing."

Then she started investigating along with musicologist Claudio Osele, who worked with her on the previous projects, and found Salieri worked with librettists such as Pierre Agostin Caron de Beaumarchais, Pietro Metastasio and Lorenzo de Ponte, and that he combined buffa and seria.

"Looking into some passages of the music, I realized that the serious passages are unbelievable. I want to find out if he wrote other operas," Bartoli said. "And, finally, I realized he composed 39 operas and he was working, Salieri, with the greatest poets and librettists of the 18th century."

With the recording on Decca and tours of Europe and the United States, she's giving Salieri a higher profile. While she would like to sing Rinaldo in "Armida," it may be too much for her to push opera companies to stage his works.

"For a house, it's always a risk to present something which is not popular," she said. "We consider him a minor composer. First, we have to re-establish him."

Heading for gold

Bartoli does have the ability to attract attention. "The Salieri Album" has sold 300,000 copies worldwide, according to Decca; that follows sales of 800,000 of the Vivaldi recording and 500,000 of the Gluck -- huge numbers these days for a classical CD.

Crossover recordings are not in her future, however.

"The mainstream things, are they really selling?" she said. "I'm not convinced 100 percent that crossing the bridge, you will sell more. The artist has to believe in the project. It's not just a commercial thing, but it's a cultural message. If I don't see any cultural message in a project I'm doing, probably I think it's not worth it to do it."

For her next recording, expect another unconventional turn.

"Definitely another musical voyage," he said. "I would like to do more in the music of the 17th century, probably with Monteverdi, when opera really starts. I would love to do that, Monteverdi and Frescobaldi."

[VadeRetro]

The real guy wasn't that ugly.

[speedy]

So that's where Traficant's wig went. Eine kleine bump music.

[VadeRetro]

"Next time I hit Red Lobster^TM before the show, I'll use a bib!"

[curmudgeonII]

Salieri wrote some very interesting and listenable music. And he was a mentor for one of Mozart's children [Xavier, I believe].

[VadeRetro]

I heard at least one piece of his on the radio, years ago. (There are no classical stations with reliably good reception where I've been living for the last 7 years, alas!) I seem to recall it as quite listenable, but he'd probably be very obscure save for the undeserved infamy of murdering Mozart.

[NotJustAnotherPrettyFace]

The real guy wasn't that ugly.

But his compositions WERE dull, and harmonically boring, compared to Mozart's ;-).

[johniegrad]

Here's one for your consideration. (Posting from Collegeville tonight.)