Salieri, Antonio
From Astro-Databank
| Name |
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| born on | 18 August 1750 at 22:00 (= 10:00 PM ) | ||
| Place | Legnago, Italy, 45n11, 11e18 | ||
| Timezone | LMT m11e18 (is local mean time) | ||
| Data source |
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| Astrology data |   25°41'   12°11 Asc. 17°37'
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Biography
Italian composer; he was brought to Vienna as a boy and lived most of his life there; he died there on May 7, 1825 in Vienna, Austria. A protégé of Gluck, he counted Ludwig Beethoven and Franz Schubert among his pupils and he wrote several Italian operas, including "Falstaff," several Masses, a "Passion" oratorio in Italian, piano concertos, and more. His best-known work was the French opera Tarare (1787), translated into Italian as Axur, re d'Ormus, which the Viennese public preferred to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Don Giovanni. Salieri's last opera was performed in 1804, and he then devoted himself to composing sacred music.
From 1774 he was court composer and conductor of the Italian opera, serving as court Kapellmeister from 1788 until 1824. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Music in Vienna (1817).
The rivalry between Salieri and Mozart is chronicled in Aleksandr Pushkin's play "Mozart and Salieri," Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera "Mozart et Salieri "and Peter Shaffer's play "Amadeus," later made into a film. However most historians and music scholars feel that their rivalry, if existent at all, may have been exaggerated and fictionalized. If Salieri indeed confessed to poisoning Mozart, there does not seem to be any evidence or historical fact supporting the homicide.
Source Notes
Sy Scholfield quotes the biography by John A. Rice, "Antonio Salieri and Viennese Opera" (University of Chicago Press, 1998), p. 11, which quotes the baptismal record that states he was born at "the '22d hour' (hora 22) of 18 August 1750." Rice adds that "The late hour of Salieri's birth apparently led the composer to celebrate his birthday on 19 August" ) p.11, n.7.).
