Day 183
Salieri: Requiem
Soloists
Gulbenkian chorus and orchestra
Lawrence Foster
it is very difficult to consider Salieri without thinking about the film and play Amadeus. The narrative of the older composer with talent and prestige and the young upstart possessed by genius is compelling and whatever the historical inaccuracies in the film the central premise is hard to deny. I've not heard much Salieri - only the recital disc of blockbuster arias recorded by Cecilia Bartoli some years ago comes to mind - and this requiem was new to me.
I have to say that it did nothing to convince me that Amadeus got it wrong. It is damming with faint praise to say that the music was competent, but that was honestly what I felt. There were some striking phrases but also a lot of fairly routine material which could have been written by any number of late 18th century composers. The fugue subjects seems curiously angular for no real reason and some of the melodic material was rather trivial for such a solemn piece. The orchestration was interesting, with an important part for Cor Anglais and much use of the trombones, but in itself that was not sufficient reason to want to hear the piece again. Sometimes the verdict of history is right.
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