Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) was an Italian
classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born
in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice,
and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the
Habsburg monarchy. He was a pivotal figure in the
development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of
Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph
Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer
who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to
develop and shap...(+)
Antonio Salieri (1750 – 1825) was an Italian
classical composer, conductor, and teacher. He was born
in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice,
and spent his adult life and career as a subject of the
Habsburg monarchy. He was a pivotal figure in the
development of late 18th-century opera. As a student of
Florian Leopold Gassmann, and a protégé of Christoph
Willibald Gluck, Salieri was a cosmopolitan composer
who wrote operas in three languages. Salieri helped to
develop and shape many of the features of operatic
compositional vocabulary, and his music was a powerful
influence on contemporary composers.
Appointed the director of the Italian opera by the
Habsburg court, a post he held from 1774 until 1792,
Salieri dominated Italian-language opera in Vienna.
During his career, he also spent time writing works for
opera houses in Paris, Rome, and Venice, and his
dramatic works were widely performed throughout Europe
during his lifetime. As the Austrian imperial
Kapellmeister from 1788 to 1824, he was responsible for
music at the court chapel and attached school. Even as
his works dropped from performance, and he wrote no new
operas after 1804, he still remained one of the most
important and sought-after teachers of his generation,
and his influence was felt in every aspect of Vienna's
musical life. Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Ludwig van
Beethoven, Anton Eberl, Johann Nepomuk Hummel and Franz
Xaver Wolfgang Mozart were among the most famous of his
pupils. Salieri's music slowly disappeared from the
repertoire between 1800 and 1868 and was rarely heard
after that period until the revival of his fame in the
late 20th century. This revival was due to the
fictionalized depiction of Salieri in Peter Shaffer's
play Amadeus (1979) and its 1984 film version. The
death of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791 at the age of
35 was followed by rumors that he and Salieri had been
bitter rivals, and that Salieri had poisoned the
younger composer, yet it has been suggested this is
false, and it is likely that they were, at least,
mutually respectful peers.
Antonio Salieri was vilified by Pushkin’s play Mozart
and Salieri, written in 1826 when the poor composer was
hardly cold in his grave. This was later turned into an
opera by Rimsky-Korsakov, and then into a modern play,
Amadeus, by Peter Schaffer. Far from being responsible
for Mozart’s death it is likely that Salieri’s
continuing success on the Viennese scene insulated him
from any need to concern himself overmuch with his
greater contemporary. In any case, had he had the
perception and imagination to be tortured by feelings
of inferiority he might have been a greater composer.
He arrived in the city at the age of seventeen and
modelled himself on his revered master Gluck.
International success followed as a composer of operas
(works like Axur and Die Danaïden), and he was created
Hofkapellmeister in Vienna three years before
Mozart’s death in 1791, a post he held for thirty-six
years. By the time of Salieri’s own death in 1825
Mozart had become a god among the Viennese, but the
Italian was the survivor, and he numbered among his
flock countless students who felt varying degrees of
gratitude—among them Schubert, Beethoven,
Hüttenbrenner, Hummel, Liszt, Meyerbeer,
Randhartinger, Sechter, Weigl and Karoline Unger.
Schubert took part in the celebration of Salieri’s
50th Jubilee celebrations in Vienna and composed a set
of pieces for the great occasion in June 1816 (Beitrag
zur fünfzigjährigen Jubelfeier des Herrn von Salieri,
ersten k.k. Hofkapellmeister in Wien, D407). He also
dedicated his Op 5 set of Goethe settings to his
teacher.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Salieri).
Although originally composed for Chorus (SATB) and
Piano/Organ, I created this interpretation of "Confirma
Hoc, Deus" (Confirm in Us, O God) for Winds (Flute,
Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon) and Strings (2 Violins,
Viola & Cello).
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