Mozart: Operatic Arias And Duets

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Cat No: 8550435

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 4891030504356

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: MOZART

Description
Mozart: Arias and DuetsWolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born inSalzburg in 1756, the son of a court musician who, in the year of his youngest child'sbirth, published an influential book on violin-playing. Leopold Mozart rose to occupy theposition of Vice-Kapellmeister to the Archbishop of Salzburg, but sacrificed his owncreative career to that of his son, in whom he detected early signs of precocious genius.With the indulgence of his patron, he was able to undertake extended concert tours ofEurope in which his son and his eider sister Nannerl were able to astonish audiences. Theboy played both the keyboard and the violin and could improvise and soon write down hisown compositions.Childhood that had brought signalsuccess was followed by a less satisfactory period of adolescence largely in Salzburg,under the patronage of a new and less sympathetic Archbishop. Mozart, like his father,found opportunities far too limited at home, while chances of travel were now restricted.In 1777, when leave of absence was not granted, he gave up employment in Salzburg to seeka future elsewhere, but neither Mannheim nor Paris, both musical centres of someimportance, had anything for him. His Mannheim connections, however, brought a commissionfor an opera in Munich in 1781, and after its successful staging he was summoned by hispatron to Vienna. There his dissatisfaction with his position and the denial ofopportunities for advancement resulted in a quarrel with the Archbishop and dismissal fromhis service.The last ten years of Mozart's lifewere spent in Vienna in precarious independence of both patron and immediate paternaladvice, a situation aggravated by an imprudent marriage. Initial success in theopera-house and as a performer was followed, as the decade went on, by increasingfinancial difficulties. Yet this was the period of his greatest achievement, in thetheatre, in chamber music and in the series of piano concertos he wrote for his ownperformance and his final symphonies. In 1791 things seemed about to take a turn for thebetter, in spite of the lack of interest at the court of the new Emperor. Praguecommissioned a coronation opera, La clemenza di Tito, and with the actor- manager EmanuelSchikaneder there was a new and successful German opera for Vienna, The Magic Flute, bothworks staged in the autumn. Mozart died after a short illness early in December.Die Entf??hrung aus dem Serail (The Abduction fromthe Seraglio) won Mozart his first operatic success in Vienna where it was staged at theBurgtheater in July, 1782, with the encouragement of the Emperor Joseph II, who wanted toestablish German opera in the city. The story concerns the attempts by the hero Belmonteto rescue his beloved Constanze from the power of the Turkish Pasha Selim, a man of greatmagnanimity, who eventually releases her and her English maid Blondchen, in spite of thewrongs done him by Belmonte's father. The Overture finds an immediate place for what wasidentified in Mozart's time as Turkish music
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