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Antonio Salieri - Veneziana Sinfonia in D major. Movement 1, 2 & 3. Michael Thrift is conducting the SYO Sinfonietta Orchestra - http://syo.com.au

The 1984 film "Amadeus", which won 8 academy awards, features Antonio Salieri. In this dramatic and highly fictionalised screenplay, Salieri is cast as the evil enemy and arch-rival of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The film opens with Salieri yelling "Mozart! Mozart, forgive your assassin! I confess, I killed you". So corrupting is Antonio Salieri, he persuades Mozart's beautiful and ambitious wife Constanze to offer herself as his mistress in order to advance her husbands career. The story, told in flashback mode, is one of intense jealousy, intrigue, humiliation and betrayal with endless plots and schemes to bring about Mozart's demise.

"This film is a work of historical fiction. Many of the events shown did not occur exactly as portrayed in the film, or happened at different times. Some did not take place at all and are included purely for dramatic purposes". Quote from the Internet Movie Database - www.imdb.com

In real life, Antonio Salieri was an extremely wealthy and successful entertainer. He was one of the most important and famous musicians of his time. 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.

Salieri taught many budding young musicians and among his pupils in composition were Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Antonio Casimir Cartellieri, and many other luminaries of the early Romantic period. He also instructed many prominent singers throughout his long career. All but the wealthiest of his pupils received their lessons for free, a tribute to the kindness Gassmann had shown to Salieri when he was a penniless orphan.

There is evidence Mozart and Salieri had a cooperative relationship. Mozart appointed Salieri to teach his son Franz Xaver. Salieri and Mozart even composed a song for voice and piano together, called Per la ricuperata salute di Ophelia. In his last surviving letter from October 14th 1791, Mozart tells his wife that he collected Salieri and his [Salieri's] mistress in his carriage and drove them both to the opera, and about Salieri's attendance at his opera Die Zauberflöte K 620, speaking enthusiastically: "He heard and saw with all his attention, and from the overture to the last choir there was no piece that didn't elicit a bravo or bello out of him.

Salieri's health declined in his later years, and he was hospitalized shortly before his death, attempting suicide on one occasion. He suffered dementia for the last year and a half of his life. It was shortly after he died that rumors first spread that he had confessed to Mozart's murder on his deathbed. Salieri's two nurses, Gottlieb Parsko and Georg Rosenberg, as well as his family doctor Joseph Röhrig, attested that he never said any such thing. At least one of these three people was with him throughout his hospitalization.

In 2003, mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli released The Salieri Album, a CD with 13 arias from Salieri's operas, most of which had never been recorded before. Patrice Michaels sang a number of his arias on the CD Divas of Mozart's Day. In 2008, another female opera star, Diana Damrau, released a CD with seven Salieri coloratura arias. Since 2000, there have also been complete recordings issued or re-issued of the operas Axur Re d'Ormus, Falstaff, Les Danaïdes, La Locandiera, La grotta di Trofonio, Prima la musica e poi le parole and Il mondo alla rovescia . Salieri has yet to fully re-enter the general repertory, but performances of his works are progressively becoming more regular.

His operas Falstaff (1995 production) and Tarare (1987 production) have been released on DVD. In 2004, the opera Europa Riconosciuta was staged in Milan for the reopening of La Scala in Milan, with soprano Diana Damrau in the title role. This production was also broadcast on television, with a future DVD release possible.

Salieri has even begun to attract some attention from Hollywood. In 2001, his triple concerto was used in the soundtrack of The Last Castle, featuring Robert Redford and James Gandolfini. In 2006, the movie Copying Beethoven referred to Salieri in a more positive light. Most recently the 2008 movie Iron Man used the Larghetto movement from Salieri's Piano Concerto in C major.

Sources:

http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Antonio_Salieri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Salieri

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/

Recorded live at the Sydney Youth Orchestra Spring Family Concert 17th September 2011 at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

The orchestra's website is http://syo.com.au
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