Addig is a Nagymester és minden bartolista figyelmébe egy friss cikk az OperaNews-ból:
Rediscovering Salieri
by CECILIA BARTOLI, translated by Joel Brody
Discovering a composer, becoming familiar with his music and then making the choice of what to perform is a process that always fills me with excitement. This is especially true when it concerns composers who are rarely or not at all performed nowadays.
Today, we perform only a small part of the works composed in past centuries, especially those of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In that era, the idea of repertory had not yet become established, and the life of opera houses was always frantically paced by alternating new productions. The style of composing, of singing, and the very taste of the audience were always evolving, and new composers rose to prominence to replace those of past generations.
It shouldn't surprise us that many of the works of that period lie forgotten in libraries. But the fact that they are no longer performed doesn't mean that they are not works of quality -- it only tells us that at a certain point, due to the evolution of the times, they were replaced by other works and eventually forgotten. (A perfect example is the case of Vivaldi, rediscovered in the early 1930s.)
In a time such as ours, when most of the classical music that is performed was composed a long time ago, often even a few centuries ago, I think it makes sense for an artist to perform, along with the established works that all of us know and love, the less familiar music we have found through our own research.
Musicological research holds unexpected surprises that renew our enthusiasm and push us to go on. But at the same time, this research can be lengthy and complicated. "Unknown" music is not always of equal value. We shouldn't be dazzled simply by the charm of "rediscovery": on the contrary, the works that we decide to bring back to life through performance must have intrinsic value and speak to our contemporary human sensibility.
Without doubt, Antonio Salieri's music possesses these qualities. It can be tragic or comic, full of fire or melancholy, but it is always extremely communicative and throbbing with life. It sweeps you up with its strength of emotion, especially when it comes to rendering the psychology of the characters and their interior life in a natural way. But it does so with a style all its own, having its foundation in the Italian tradition, and with Gluck as a model, it leads us to the threshold of Romanticism.
In getting to know Salieri's music, we gain a better understanding of one of the richest seminal periods in opera history. He is the hub around which the musical life of Vienna revolved for years -- and oh, what years! His fame and compositions spread throughout Europe, especially to Italy -- Rome, Florence, Venice and Milan, where his opera L'Europa Riconosciuta (1778) opened the new La Scala opera house -- and France, where he scored great Parisian successes in Les Danaďdes (1784) and Tarare (1787, with a libretto by none other than Beaumarchais).
In addition to Beaumarchais, poets such as Giovanni Battista Casti, Lorenzo da Ponte, Caterino Mazzolŕ and Giovanni De Gamerra wrote for Salieri. Da Ponte, upon arriving in Vienna for the first time, went straight to Salieri to be introduced to Court, and it was for Salieri that he wrote his first opera libretto. No less significant was Salieri's commitment to teaching. Among the many musicians who studied with Salieri, it should suffice to remember Schubert, Beethoven, Czerny, Hummel, Moscheles, Weigl, Süssmayr, the young Liszt and Mozart's son, Franz Xavier Wolfgang, after the death of his father.
Nearly all of Salieri's compositions have come down to us in manuscript form. There are only a few printed editions, mostly of instrumental pieces, and this fact has surely prevented a suitable dissemination of his music. Fortunately, however, we have been provided with examples of signed works. Musicologist Claudio Osele (with whom I collaborated on my previous recordings of Vivaldi and Gluck) worked painstakingly on analyzing these and the opera output of the Venetian master. After he had made a preliminary list, I chose the thirteen selections that make up The Salieri Album. Osele then prepared a critical edition of this music, not only for the recording but for actual performances in the concert hall. Our selections reflect the entire expressive range of the composer.
There are some highly virtuoso arias, in which coloratura predominates. It is a coloratura that I choose to call "positive," because it has an inner joy and a unique playfulness. I don't know how else to describe this special characteristic, especially the relationship of the vocal line to the obbligato instruments in such arias as "Sulle mie tempie" and "Vi sono sposa e amante." This predilection for the scherzo and the divertimento -- in the truest senses of the words -- is just as present in the arias "Non vo' giŕ che si suonino," "Dopo pranzo addormentata," "La ra la" or "Se lo dovessi vendere." (One only needs to read the texts of the canons that Salieri composed during his long walks in the Vienna Woods to realize that a sense of mischief was an important trait of his character.) This is also true of the music he composed for the sea storm for "Son qua lacera tartana," where the virtuosity of the orchestra is raised to an almost absurdly high level. On the other hand, in the two arias from Palmira, Regina di Persia (1795), there is great dramatic intensity within the bounds of what I would call "classical style." And as a complete contrast, there is the scene from Armida (1771), in which the sweeter and more tender aspect of Salieri's music comes to life in a serene, relaxed love song. Finally, the three great rondos display his capacity for introspection. In these variations on the pains of love, the music brings us inside the heart of the characters in the most direct way, articulating its most secret longings. While the vocal line fully expresses the feelings of these women in love, the use of tone color in the instruments creates enchanting atmosphere.
Antonio Salieri is a name with which many people are familiar. The same thing can't be said for his work. The legend that has made him famous -- or infamous -- has absolutely no foundation in reality. I hope this recording will allow us to become more familiar with the "real" Salieri, through what counts most -- his extraordinary music.
Cecilia Bartoli's latest CD, The Salieri Album, was released by Decca on September 30.
