Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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226 SARTI SARTI
Conservatorio of Naples. This victory over
Paisiello and other eminent musicians greatly
increased his reputation, and procured him
many distinguished pupib, Cherubini among
the number, who indeed was not only his
pupil, but for some years his assistant.^ In
1784 he received an invitation from Russia too
advantageous to be refused, but the nine years
spent in Milan were the most brilliant of his
whole career, and the most prolific, including
as they did his most successful operas, 'Le
Gelosie villane '
^ and
' Farnace ' (Venice, 1776)
'Achille in Sciro' (Florence, Oct. 1779);
' Giulio Sabino ' (Venice, 1781), and Fra ' i due
Litiganti' (Milan, 1782). To complete the
list, at least ten more operas and several cantatas
on a large scale should be added, works
for the cathedral choir, including several masses,
a Miserere a i, and some important motets.
On his way to St. Petersburg, Sarti made
some stay at Vienna, where Joseph II. received
him graciously, and granted him the proceeds
of a performance of ' I due litiganti,' which had
long maintained its place at the Burgtheater,
and had helped to fill its coffers, as the monarch
politely told the composer. He there made
the acquaintance of Mozart, then in the very
prime of life, who speaks of him as an ' honest,
good man,' and who not only played to him a
good deal, but adopted an air from his Due
'
Litiganti' as the theme of a set of Variations
(Kbchel, 460), and as a subject in the second
finale of Don ' Juan. ' His pleasure in Mozart's
playing did not, however, place him on Mozart's
level ; and when the famous six quartets were
published, Sarti was one of the loudest to complain
of their 'barbarisms/ His examination
remains mostly in MS., but some extracts are
given in the A.M.Z. for 1832 (p. 373), including
nineteen serious errors in thirty-six bars,
and showing how difficult it is even for a very
clever composer to apprehend the ideas of one
greater than Iiiinself.
Catherine II. received him with even greater
marks of favour than Joseph, which he repaid
by composing several important works for her
own choir, and by bringing the Italian opera
into a state of efficiency it had never attained
before. Among his sacred compositions of this
period may be mentioned an oratorio for two
choirs, full orchestra, and baud of Russian
horns ; a Te Deum for the taking of Otohakow
by Potemkin ; and a Reqaiem in honour of
Louis XVI. It was in the Te Deum that Sarti
employed fireworks and the discharge of cannon
to heighten the martial effect of the music.
Among his operas produced at St. Petersburg
were 'Armida' (1786), which had an immense
success, and was sung to perfection by the
celebrated Todi; and 'Olega,' the libretto of
1 See Cherublnl'8 preface to the Catalogue of his works.
2 Mosai-t, In 1791. wi-otea ftnal chorus for this, of which, however,
nothing has survived but the five bars in his autograph catalogue,
(See Kilchel, SIS.)
which was by the Empress herself. In this
opera Sarti endeavoured to imitate the music
of the ancient Greeks, and made use of some
of their modes. A skilled mathematician and
physicist, he was fond of explaining to the
Empress his theories of acoustics, which he
illustrated by many ingenious experiments.
He invented a machine for counting the vibrations
of sounds, and fixed 436 vibrations ' for
the A, as the normal pitch for his orchestra.
For this invention he was elected an honorary
member of the Academy of Science in St.
Petersburg. Many other honours were conferred
upon him, including those of councillor of the
University, chief maltre de ehapelle to the
court, and nobility of the first class. Todi's
intrigues caused him temporary inconvenience,
but he consoled himself for a short period of
disgrace by going to a village in the Ukraine,
given him by Prince Potemkin, and founding
there a school of singing which turned out
some remarkable singers. In 1793 the Empress
restored him completely to favour, and placed
him at the head of a Conservatoire planned
after the model of those in Italy. After her
death and that of her son Paul I., Sarti determined
to revisit his native land, and in the
spring of 1802 left Russia, where he had lived
for eighteen years without a break. At Berlin
he formed an intimacy with the Court-oapellmeister,
Noel Mussini (born at Bergamo, 1765;
died at Florence, 1837), who fell in love with
his daughter Giuliana, and became his son-inlaw.*
Immediately after the marriage the kind
and gentle Sarti fell seriously ill of gout, and
died July 28, 1802, aged seventy-three. He
was buried in the Catholic church of St. Edwige,
where his ashes still remain.
From some unexplained cause very few of
Sarti's compositions have been engraved. His
Te Deum was printed with Russian words at
St. Petersburg, and Breitkopf & Hartel have
published two of his sacred pieces, one in eight,
the other in six real parts. A French translation
of the Nozze ' di Dorina ' (identical with
'
Fra i due Litiganti '), apparently the only
opera of his that has been engraved, appeared
in Paris ; but Ricordi of Milan has copies of
' Armida e Rinaldo ' ; 'I finti Eredi '
; ' Le
Gelosie villane'; 'Nitteti,' and ' Vologeso.'
These scores, as well as those of ' Adriano in
Sciro,' '
Alessandro,' 'Gli Amanti consolati,'
' Castore e PoUuce,' ' I Contratempi,' Didone
'
abbandonata,' 'Erifile,' 'Fra i due Litiganti,'
'Giulio Sabino,' 'Idalide,' 'Ifigenia,' 'II Medonte,'
'II Militare bizzarre," 'Mitridate,' and
'Soipione,' and also of nearly all his sacred
works, are in the library of the Paris Conservatoire,
from which circumstance the writer is
3 The
'
diapason normale ' fixes 435 vibrations for the same note.
* The articles on Sarti and Mussini in Pdtis are full of errors and
oraissions. We have corrected the most glaring mistakes from
family papers kindly furnished by the distinguished painter L.
Hussini, director of the Huseo at Sienxk, and grandson of the
composer.