Antonio Salieri

Poor Antonio Salieri, destined to be forever damned as Mozart’s mediocre rival. This portrayal, though, crystallised in dramatic depictions of Mozart’s final days going back to the 19th century, couldn’t be further from the truth. Salieri was born in Legnano in 1750, but was talent-spotted and taken as a teenager to Vienna, where he developed a career as an opera composer. He caught the ear of the Emperor and rose from court composer to director of the city’s Italian opera and finally Imperial Kapellmeister (1788-1824), making him the most important and powerful musician in the empire. His operas were performed throughout Europe and ranged from Italian comedies to serious music dramas such as Armida (1771), German Singspiel, Greek tragedy (in the form of the powerful Les Danaïdes, composed for Paris in 1784) and hugely successful stylistic fusions such as Axur, King of Ormus (1788). Mozart’s death in 1791 removed a crucial artistic stimulus, and Salieri’s attention turned from opera to sacred music, including five Masses and a Requiem that he conceived for his own funeral. The recent revival of his music shows him to have been far more than the also-ran of legend.