Antonio Salieri

Antonio Salieri (18 August 1750 – 7 May 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 studied violin and X keyboard in his native town, continuing his musical education in Venice after the deaths of his parents around 1765. He became a protege of the composer Florian Leopold Gassmann (1729-74), who brought him to Vienna, taught him composition, and introduced him to such important figures in the musical life of the Hapsburg capital as Metastasio, Gluck, and Emperor Joseph II; the music-loving monarch became one of his most enthusiastic supporters. Following several successful efforts in the comic vein, Salieri made his name as a composer of opera seria with Armida, which met with resounding acclaim at its Vienna premiere in 1771. In 1774 Salieri succeeded Gassmann as court composer and became head of the Italian opera in Vienna. In 1788 he became court Kapellmeister, a title he held until his retirement in 1824. Thanks to his talent and connections, Salieri also enjoyed considerable success in Paris during the 1780s. With the support of Gluck and the emperor (whose sister was Marie Antoinette), Salieri undertook the composition of Les Danaides, a five-act tragedie lyrique, and presided over its premiere at the Paris Opera in 1784. That led to the commission for Tarare, with a libretto by Beaumarchais, which was an even greater hit at its premiere in 1787. Following Salieri’s return to Vienna, Joseph commissioned an Italian version of Tarare, titled Axur, re d’Ormus, with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte; it received its premiere in 1788 and by 1805 had been performed more than 100 times in Vienna. None of Salieri’s subsequent efforts enjoyed that degree of popularity, but he continued to produce works for the Viennese stage until 1804 and composed a good deal of sacred music after that.

At the time Salieri was active, the vast difference in quality between his best work and Mozart’s best work was not as apparent as it is today. Salieri’s music was rightly admired: It appealed to the tastes of the day, was easily assimilated, and made few demands. As one of the most highly placed musicians in in Vienna during Mozart’s ten years there (1781-91), Salieri almost certainly aroused more envy in Mozart than Mozart did in him; indeed, the Italian could afford to be, and often was, generous in the praise of his younger colleague’s music. In 1789 he arranged for the first performance of Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet and, in April 1791, he may well have conducted the Vienna premiere of one of Mozart’s last symphonies—most likely No. 39 or 40—for it is known that a “grand symphony” by Mozart was played under Salieri’s direction by an orchestra that included the brother clarinetists Anton and Johann Stadler.

It is not known how the rumor originated that Salieri poisoned Mozart, though Mozart’s own son dismissed it as false in 1829.

That did not keep Pushkin from embracing the notion in his verse play Mozart and Salieri (1830) or Peter Shaffer from embellishing it still further in Amadeus (1984).

In his later years Salieri devoted much of his time to teaching, passing along what he had learned about counterpoint, theory, and Italian vocal style to younger musicians, among them Beethoven, Schubert, and Liszt.