Soprano solo with 2 oboes, 2 horns in F, and strings

Program Notes by Martin Pearlman

While still a young prodigy of sixteen, Mozart was commissioned to write his opera Lucio Silla for the opening of the carnival season in Milan at the end of 1772.  He was contracted to compose and send the recitatives in advance but to come to Milan to write the arias, so that he could first get to know the singers.  Venanzio Rauzzini was hired for the role of Cecilio, and the effervescent arias that Mozart wrote for him suggest how impressed he was with his primo uomo. 

Leopold Mozart wrote that Rauzzini sang the aria Il tenero momento "like an angel."  That extended, virtuosic aria and the accompanied recitative leading up to it occur near the beginning of the opera.  Cecilio has been exiled, and his lover, Giunia, has been told by the tyrant Lucio Silla that he is dead.  As the opera opens, Cecilio has secretly returned from exile, and, in this aria, he anxiously awaits the chance to be reunited with his lover.

Boston Baroque Performances

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