Bard Music Festival
Program Five • Rivalries and Conspiracies
August 9
Bard Music Festival
August 9
The Habsburg Emperor Joseph II pitted Mozart against his Italian peers in two historic contests, both brought back to life in Program Five, “Rivalries and Conspiracies.” On the first such occasion, the emperor invited Mozart and pianist-composer Muzio Clementi, then newly arrived from Italy, to compete at the piano. Clementi played his own virtuosic B-flat-major Sonata, and Mozart responded by improvising a set of variations on a theme from André Grétry’s Les mariages samnites. Both pianists were then challenged to sightread music by Giovanni Paisiello, another Italian rival, after which — despite privately collecting on a bet in Mozart’s favor — Joseph II officially declared the duel a draw. Five years later, he commissioned Mozart and the Imperial Court Composer Antonio Salieri to write one-act operas on the same subject for a contest at Vienna’s vast Schönbrunn Palace, where Salieri’s Prima la musica, poi le parole (“First the Music, then the Words”) and Mozart’s Der Schauspieldirektor (“The Impresario”) premiered back-to-back before a court audience, tasked to choose between them. Keen to promote a German-language Singspiel tradition, Joseph II hoped that Mozart’s offering would prevail, but it was Salieri’s fashionable Italian opera buffa that won the day.
2 pm • Preconcert Talk
3 pm • Performance (plus livestream): Aaron Blake, tenor; Katrina Galka, soprano; Jennifer Zetlan, soprano; Theo Hoffman, baritone; Danny Driver and Piers Lane, piano; Bard Festival Ensemble, conducted by Dorian Bandy, harpsichord; and others
Wolfgang Amadé Mozart (1756–91)
8 Variations on “Dieu d’amour” from Les mariages samnites by Grétry in F, K352 (1781)
Der Schauspieldirektor, K486 (1786)
Giovanni Paisiello (1740–1816)
From The Barber of Seville (1782)
Antonio Salieri (1750–1825)
From Prima la musica, poi le parole (1786)
Muzio Clementi (1752–1832)
Piano Sonata in B-flat, Op. 24, No. 2 (1789)
Antonio Salieri, Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, and Cornetti
Per la ricupate salute di Ofelia, K6477a
Artwork: Antonio Salieri painted by Joseph Willibrord Mähler; Wikimedia Commons
Grab a bite and a drink while you’re at the Fisher Center! We offer theater concessions at Sosnoff Theater, LUMA Theater, and Olin Hall. Across the way is the al fresco Spiegeltent Garden—or grab a nosh while seeing a Spiegeltent performance. There is ample space for outdoor picnics across the Bard College campus. Nearby villages and towns in the Hudson Valley boast a large selection of restaurants, as well as a variety of hotels, motels, inns, and bed & breakfasts.
Eat & StayBard College’s main campus is located in Annandale-on-Hudson (a hamlet of Red Hook), New York, on the east bank of the Hudson River, about 90 miles north of New York City and 220 miles southwest of Boston. The Taconic State Parkway and the New York State Thruway provide the most direct routes to our campus. Click the Google map below, or get directions by entering the following address into your GPS: 60 Manor Avenue, Red Hook, NY 12571.
From the East
If you are traveling from east of the Hudson River in New York State, take the Taconic State Parkway to the Red Hook / Route 199 exit, drive west on Route 199 through the village of Red Hook to Route 9G, turn right onto Route 9G, drive north 1.9 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
From the West
If you are traveling from west of the Hudson River, take the New York State Thruway (I-87) to exit 19 (Kingston), take Route 209 (changes to Route 199 at the Hudson River) over the Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge to Route 9G, turn left onto Route 9G, drive north 3.5 miles, turn left onto Annandale Road, then turn right onto Manor Ave.
Sosnoff Theater
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