MOZART & SALIERI: THE GREAT RIVALS - ERNST MARZENDORFER, AUSTRIAN TONKUNSTLER ORCHESTRA

The Great Rivals liner notes

Stories of jealousy and intrigues between composers or their adherents are probably as old as music itself. But two rivalries have become famous, though undoubtedly exaggerated by legend and myth. Antonio Salieri (1750-1825) came to Vienna while still a student in 1766, in time became the Emperor's favorite opera composer and was appointed Court Kapellmeister in 1788. There is no doubt that Mozart (1756-1791) felt slighted. Mozart's position deteriorated still further when Joseph II died in 1790 and was succeeded by his brother, Leopold, who took very little interest in Mozart. It seems rather certain that Salieri plotted against Mozart, and the mysterious circumstances of Mozart's death probably lent weight to the legend that Salieri had poisoned Mozart. A considerable literature has grown out of this assumption, and there is even an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov on the subject, based on Pushkin's play. (Musicological and medical authorities have long since concluded that the legend has no basis in fact). The rivalry between the partisans of Piccinni and Gluck was far more spectacular. Niccolò Piccinni (1728-1800) had achieved considerable fame as an operatic composer in Italy, mainly in Rome, when he was called to Paris in 1776. There, his operas were much admired by a certain group of amateurs, who, with much noise, proclaimed their superiority over those of Gluck (1714-1787), who was then active in Paris. Piccinni was a reformer. He freed opera from the static clichés of an earlier period, and, although he had no command of French when he composed his first opera to a French libretto, he was careful to give the text its due in his music. Today the rivalry between Gluck and Piccinni (which was not of their own making, in any case) is difficult to understand, because both composers had the same aim: to create operas which, at the same time, make sense as drama. For this record we have selected typical examples of the work by the two pairs of rivals, not in order to demonstrate the obvious fact that Mozart 'and Gluck were the superior composers, but to show, aside from the musical merits of the respective works, the similarity of approach in the two instances.