Salieri: Overtures

Antonio Salieri (Composer), Michael Dittrich (Conductor), Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava) (Orchestra), Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Bratislava (Orchestra) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Orchestra: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Bratislava
• Conductor: Michael Dittrich
• Composer: Antonio Salieri
• Audio CD (May 16, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos
• ASIN: B00004SSJE
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #149,436 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Surprisingly delightful, May 17, 2000

By 

F. Behrens "Frank Behrens" (Keene, NH USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salieri: Overtures (Audio CD)

Poor Salieri! After the job done on him in "Amadeus," one expects from his music nothing more than well-wrought pieces with no touches of genius whatsoever. Well, balderdash to that prejudice, as is demonstrated by the Naxos release of a dozen of his <Overtures> (8.554838). Here, try this at a party. Without identifying composer or piece, play a few minutes of each cut and see if your audience can identify the former. I think I personally would have guessed at Haydn or Telemann on several of them. After all, this was the man who gave instruction to Schubert and Beethoven at one time or another and was certainly praised in his time by those who did know better.

But all this background aside, you will certainly enjoy these classical and sometimes early Romantic overtures to operas that no one will ever again perform for several reasons. The Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava) under Michael Dittrich makes a good case for the composer, and the lighter and more serious of the overtures are nicely arranged to avoid repetition. Very nicely done in all respects.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helping to bring Salieri out of the shade, April 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Salieri: Overtures (Audio CD)

I have read with interest the preceding reviews of this CD, and they seem to alternate between declaring Salieri an unacknowledged genius and totally worthless! (The Gramophone review, by the way, fell more into the latter category.) The truth lies somewhere in between. He is certainly no Mozart, but nonetheless he did write some very beautiful music which is surely worth hearing.

Like a previous reviwer, I was particularly impressed by "Cesare in Farmacusa" (1800), an overture in the "tempesta di mare" ("storm at sea") style, which has an incision and power that look ahead to Beethoven's thunderstorm music from the "Pastoral", and by "Ricco d'un giorno" (1784), a spirited and lively piece which is probably the most "Mozartian" item on the disc. There are some interesting moments in the other pieces, including "Les Danaides" (1784), which resonates with Gluck and even seems to look ahead to the Commendatore music in Mozart's "Don Giovanni". Worthy of note as well is the festive overture to "L'Angiolina" (1800), which is a setting of Ben Jonson's "The Silent Woman", which incidentally also inspired Donizetti's "Don Pasquale" and Strauss' "Die Schweigsame Frau".

All in all, a very nice disc which helps to bring Salieri out of the shade and is certainly worth exploring for anyone interested in the music of the late Classical and early Romantic periods.

...

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy music, October 20, 2005

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Salieri: Overtures (Audio CD)

It is unfortunate that Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) is known now almost exclusively for being the nemesis of Mozart in the Peter Schaffer play and subsequent film 'Amadeus'. Salieri was certainly much more than the thwarted, second-rate composer. Perhaps he was not in Mozart's league so far as composition power goes (although the best of Salieri certainly stands up as worthy in comparison with many of the major composers of his time), but he was a respected composer in his own time, and perhaps more than for his composition, he was respected as a teacher and court musician. Salieri counts among his pupils Beethoven, Schubert, Liszt and even Mozart's second son.

His operas tended to follow a particularly popular formula, with dramatic flairs and stories easily accessible to the people. He drew inspiration from historical works, from mythological and fictional works, as well as works of popular circulation. Salieri even used some libretti from Lorenzo de Ponte, perhaps better known now as a librettist for Mozart.

This disc includes overtures of twelve operas (Salieri wrote nearly 50 operas, several of which were not premiered until the 1990s). They include pieces from his dramatic operas as well as his comic operas. The power in these is certainly evident. Perhaps the best of the lot is 'Cesare in Farmacusa (Tempesta di Mare)' and 'Axur, Re d'Ormus', an opera also involving de Ponte, and reworked from an earlier attempt to do a French opera into an Italian one.

It is a mistake (reinforced by 'Amadeus') to classify Salieri as an Italian composer - he lived most of his life in Vienna, and was criticised by the Empress at one point for being too much of a German composer. Salieri's works such as 'Don Chisciotte alle nozze di Gamace', the overture of which is included here, certainly shows his strength in writing toward the German.

This disc is a fun disc to listen to. There is nothing earth-shattering or new here, but these pieces are good compositions, and the performances by the Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), under the direction of Michael Dittrich, is exemplary. This is one of those often-overlooked Eastern European orchestras that has incredible performance ability; they have had international touring experience as well as a number of recordings for Naxos, who is to be praised for bringing less popular music to the general public in an affordable way.