The Divertimenti vocali, a collection of 28 short arias, duets, and trios, are almost all based on texts by Pietro Metastasio, a former Viennese court poet who had personally taught Salieri.
Performer Biography
Ulrich Eisenlohr, the pianist on this album, is known for his extensive concert career as a song accompanist and chamber musician, and for a complete CD recording of Schubert's songs.
Composer Biography
Antonio Salieri, though living in Vienna from age sixteen, remained true to his birth region, Veneto, and composed a sonnet for the liberation of Venice from French occupation.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Salieri's primary artistic goal was to adequately translate the content of a text into music and to musically animate the meaning of the words.
Critical Reception
Salieri's settings of 'In questa tomba oscura' were reviewed in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung in 1808, with one described as "simple, light, rather ordinary" and another as "extremely simple, in the old German style... most perfect piece of all."
Composition History
The two settings of the poem 'In questa tomba oscura' by Salieri were part of a competition among fifty famous composers, initiated by Countess Rzewuska and poet Carpani.
Composition History
Salieri's pupils, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, also set texts by Pietro Metastasio under Salieri's supervision to learn Italian prosody, sometimes using the same verses as their teacher.
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