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GIUSEPPE SARTI (1729–1802)

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Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 224 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GIUSEPPE

SARTI (1729–1802)  ,
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Italian composer, was born at Faenza on the 28th of December 1729 . He was educated by Padre Martini, and appointed organist of the
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cathedral of Faenza before the completion of his nineteenth
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year . Resigning his appointment in 1750, Sarti devoted himself to the study of dramatic
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music, becoming director of the Faenza theatre in 1752 . In 1751 he produced his first opera, Pompeo, with
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great success . His next
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works, Il Re Pastore, Medonte, Demofoonte and L'Olimpiade, assured him so brilliant a reputation that in 1753 King Frederick V. of Denmark invited him to Copenhagen, with the appointments of Hofkapellmeister and director of the opera . Here he produced his Ciro riconsosciuto . In 1765 he travelled to Italy to engage some new singers; meanwhile the
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death of King Frederick put an end for the time to his engagement . In 1769 he went to
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London, where he could only contrive to exist by giving music lessons . In 1770 he obtained a
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post in Venice as music master at the Conservatorio dell' Ospedaletto . In 1779 he was elected
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maestro di cappella at the cathedral of Milan, where he remained until 1784 . Here he exercised his true vocation—composing, in addition to at least twenty of his most successful operas, a vast quantity of sacred music for the cathedral, and educating a number of
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clever pupils, the most distinguished of whom was Cherubini . In 1784 Sarti was invited by the empress Catherine II. to St
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Petersburg .

On his way thither he stopped at

Vienna, where the emperor Joseph II. received him with marked favour, and where he made the acquaintance of Mozart . He reached St Petersburg in 1785, and at once took the direction of the opera, for which he composed many new pieces, besides some very striking sacred music, including a Te Deum for the victory of
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Ochakov, in which he introduced the firing of real cannon . He remained in Russia until 18o1, when his
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health was so broken that he solicited permission to return . The emperor Alexander dismissed him in 1802 with a liberal pension; letters of
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nobility had been granted to him by the empress Catherine . His most successful operas in Russia were Armida and Olega, for the latter of which the empress herself wrote the libretto . Sarti died at Berlin on the 28th of
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July 1802 . Sarti's opera I Due Litiganti has been immortalized by Mozart, who introduced an air from it into the supper scene in Don Giovanni . It should be noted that Mozart's- Nozze di
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Figaro owed a great
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deal to the influence of this opera, which was performed in Vienna in 1784 . The admirable libretto by Da Ponte, author of the libretti of Figaro and Don Giovanni, shows similar situations, and the complicated finale of the first act served as a model to Mozart for the finale of the last act of Figaro .

End of Article: GIUSEPPE SARTI (1729–1802)
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