WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Bastiano and Bastiana K 50
Singspiel in one act
(premiere performance in Carpi)
Bastiana Margherita Monelli
Bastiano Paolo Delai
Mago Colas Giovanni Baraldi
Students of Katja Lytting's singing class
Original prologue by Soliapa Duacaliga
*****
Exultate, jubilate K 165
Motet
Maria Francesca Rossi soprano
Orchestra I Musici di Parma Daniele Bisi conductor Marina Meinero direction
Bastiano and Bastiana K 50 is an opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, written when the composer was only twelve years old, and performed very rarely. It is his first Singspiel , in one act, with a libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Weiskern, Johann HF Mueller and Andreas Schachtner, based on Les amours de Bastien et Bastienne by Marie-Justine-Benoîte Favart, Charles-Simon Favart and Harny de Guerville. However, the theme dates back to Le devin du village by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Traditionally it is believed that the opera was commissioned by the famous doctor and hypnotist Franz Anton Mesmer and performed in the garden of his villa in Vienna on 1 October 1768. However, the first documented performance took place in Berlin on 2 October 1890.
The initial theme of the short overture ("intrada") in G major is extraordinarily similar to the main theme of the first movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Third Symphony; it is believed that it may be a mere coincidence, as it seems unlikely that Beethoven would have known this early work by Mozart.
Exsultate, jubilate K 165 is a motet composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Milan in 1773 in the Teatini convent, which was located in the church of Sant'Antonio Abate, with the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini.
Although it is not a composition of large proportions, it is considered among the greatest examples of vocal music by the young Mozart, just seventeen.
