ORFEO International – Reviews

Important Releases Briefly Introduced

April 2011

Antonio Salieri - Harmoniemusiken

After having suffered from numerous legends that were negative to the point of defamation, Antonio Salieri has long been rehabilitated. He in fact shares many traits with his supposed competitor Mozart, if one takes a closer look at their dramatic oeuvre.
C 738 111 AThey shared an instinct for choosing topics suited to the stage and for writing music that was particularly stageworthy, and they both at the same time strove for virtuosity and expressive truth. The combination of the serious and the comic in the dramma giocoso was as much a matter of concern to the Venetian Salieri as it was to his Salzburg colleague who was his junior by six years. And finally, the "recycling" of their music in popular contemporary arrangements for wind band was something that was not merely a source of delight to either one of them. The lack of any kind of copyright protection in those days meant that professional arrangers time and again pipped the composers to the post when it was a matter of reworking operatic highlights for wind octet. Probably the best-known "banda" of the day was to be found in the palace of the Esterházy princes. As so often before, the clarinettist and music researcher Dieter Klöcker has in the course of his investigations here unearthed their treasures for the ensemble Consortium Classicum. The attraction of Antonio Salieri's musico-dramatic oeuvre lies in its equal measure of virtuosity, sensibility and comedy, and all of these ingredients are found again in the wind band arrangements from three of his operas recorded here. In his La grotto di Trofonio, the intense, magical atmosphere is heard already in its charming wind soli for cor anglais and clarinet, and these are to be found again here. The arrangements from Axur, Rè d'Ormus delight us with their exact instrumental reproduction of the vocal virtuosity and charm of its arias and ballads. In Palmira, regina di Persia, Salieri exploits musical contrasts to the full and in an a cappella quartet also proves himself a master of the vocal ensemble. This art naturally also comes into its own in the version for wind band, and rounds off a enjoyably colourful, contrasting programme with the Consortium Classicum.