Bohemian composer Florian Leopold Gassmann was one of the leading lights of Italian opera in Vienna in the generation before Mozart; Mozart's alleged adversary Antonio Salieri was one of Gassmann's pupils and assumed Gassmann's post as director of the Hofkapelle in the wake of his untimely death in a fall from a carriage at age 44 in 1774. Although he composed 33 symphonies, sacred music, secular cantatas, and chamber music of such quality that it was praised by Charles Burney, Gassmann's mark was made in opera; he composed ...
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Bohemian composer Florian Leopold Gassmann was one of the leading lights of Italian opera in Vienna in the generation before Mozart; Mozart's alleged adversary Antonio Salieri was one of Gassmann's pupils and assumed Gassmann's post as director of the Hofkapelle in the wake of his untimely death in a fall from a carriage at age 44 in 1774. Although he composed 33 symphonies, sacred music, secular cantatas, and chamber music of such quality that it was praised by Charles Burney, Gassmann's mark was made in opera; he composed 21 operas overall and contributed to a number of others. A selection of 10 orchestral overtures to these operas are presented on Naxos' Florian Leopold Gassmann: Opera Overtures, which also serves -- along with Mark Adamo's opera Late Victorians, released in the same month -- as the Naxos recording debut of the Washington, D.C.-based Eclipse Chamber Orchestra as led by conductor Sylvia Alimena. Alimena is a French horn player in the National Symphony Orchestra and co-founded Eclipse...
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