"Conservati fedele" (K. 23) is a concert aria for soprano and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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Mozart composed the aria in October 1765 while staying at The Hague during the family's British-European tour, when he was nine years old. Both of the Mozart children, Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl, were quite ill at the time. It was slightly revised in January 1766, possibly for a performance for Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau. In his list of Wolfgang's works which he started in 1768 in Vienna, his father Leopold entered this piece as no. 2 of 15 Italian Arias, composed in London and The Hague (German: 15 Italiänische Arien theils in London, theils im Haag Componiert).[1]
The Newberry Library (Case MS 6A, 48), Chicago, acquired the manuscript (6 sheets, 11 pages) through a bequest of the opera singer Claire Dux –Mrs Charles H. Swift– (1885–1967 in Chicago). It was previously owned by Raphael Georg Kiesewetter who gave the autograph to Aloys Fuchs as a gift. Both Fuchs and Abbé Maximilian Stadler confirmed its authenticity with their signatures on 7 December 1832.[2] The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe also mentions an autograph (4 sheets, 7 pages) at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in its Malherbe collection.[1]
The text is taken from Metastasio's libretto Artaserse which had been set to music by a number of composers, among them Johann Christian Bach whom Mozart had met just a short time before in London. Metastasio's libretti have been set to music by a large number of composers. Mozart's largest work based on a Metastasio text was his last opera, La clemenza di Tito, as was his earlier Il re pastore.
The lyrics chosen by Mozart are the parting verses of Artaserse's sister, Mandane, in act 1, scene 1, as she bids farewell to her lover Arbace:
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Conservati fedele; |
Stay and remain faithful; |
The text of "Conservati fedele" has also been set to music by Leonardo Vinci (1690–1730) and Hasse (1699–1783) in their respective operas Artaserse, by Antonio Salieri and Marianne von Martinez (1744–1812)[3] as concert arias, twice by Joseph Martin Kraus (1756–1792), by Ferdinando Carulli (1770–1841) for voice and guitar, and by Theodor von Schacht (1748–1823) as a canon for three equal voices accompanied by cembalo and/or guitar.
The work is scored for soprano, two violins, viola, cello and bass; the tempo marking is Andante grazioso, the time signature is 2/4 time, the key signature is A major. A typical performance would last for about 7 minutes.
It is composed as a da capo aria (bars 1–86) with a short middle section ("Ch'io per virtù d'amore", bars 87–100) which has the tempo marking Allegretto and is in the parallel key of A minor. The aria consists almost wholly of two-bar phrases.
After hearing this piece and "Va, dal furor portata" (K. 21) written by the nine year-old Mozart, Baron Grimm predicted that "the boy would have an opera performed in an Italian theatre before he was twelve".[4] As it turned out, Mozart's first work for the stage, Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots, was performed less than 18 month later, and his first work for an Italian theatre, Mitridate, re di Ponto, opened in Milan in 1770 when Mozart was 14 years old.