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Antonio Luigi Saccherini
Spoof entry for The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, submitted by Andrew Roberts of London, in response to the spoof article "The New Grove," listing entries that would NOT appear in the Grove's new edition. The original article ran in The Musical Times (Vol. 122, No. 1656, February 1981); Roberts' suggestion was published in the April 1981 issue (Vol. 122, No. 1658)
Saccherini, Antonio Luigi (b Zucchero, Tuscany, 1730; d Caprifoglio, nr. Naples, 1805). Italian composer and cellist. He wrote his first opera, Il mondo della luna di miele (based on the play by Goldoni), soon after marrying his childhood sweetheart Maddalena Favo. It was indeed for her mellifluous soprano that Saccherini composed this and many other operas; she was soon celebrated throughout Europe in her own right as 'La Zuccherese'.
Saccherini's first major success was Don Franco Coperario, ossia Il convitato di marmellata; the libretto was based on a play by Gozzi from which Prokofiev was also to draw inspiration. The action is set in Seville; in one scene the hero accompanies himself on a MANDARIN; and there is an impassioned aria for the heroine, 'Or sai chi mandorle' (which E. J. Dentista, in his racy translation for the Falmouth revival of 1927, renders as 'I'm nuts about almonds'). The ballet music for La zabaglione abbandonata includes a captivating alla marsala, and Lorenzo da Ponte seems to have had a hand in the libretto: one aria is set to the words 'Come scoglio' (which Dentista translates 'Hard as Brighton Rock am I/For you I got no lullaby'), while another begins 'Un dolce ristoro' - a foretaste, so to speak, of a line from Ferrando's 'Un aura amorosa' in Cosi fan tutte. Saccherini's operas enjoyed a considerable vogue in Vienna, and the principal feature of interest in Pane, amore ed animelle, an agreeable pasticceria, is the insertion aria by Mozart, 'Metre, melassa' (K513b); there seems no reason, however, to credit contemporary rumours that F. X. Siissmayr was Saccherini's natural son.
Saccherini spent most of the 1770s in London, where he was painted by Gainsborough; it was for the artist's circle of musical friends that Saccherini composed his numerous string quintets. He subsequently moved to Paris and came under the influence of Gluck: the result was Oedipe a Periodonte (1787; Italian version, 1789). This was a succès fou on two counts. The highlight of the opera is a sensational scene in which the king (who as a child had been fed on sweetmeats by an indulgent nurse) complains to the prima donna, 'Alveare, Ho cavita!' whereupon she pulls out his remaining teeth. And it was Signora Saccherini's performance in this her final role that created the fashion for beehive coiffures - a development that threatened to have far-reaching implications for the design of opera houses had not the French Revolution supervened.
Saccherini's popularity did not long outlast his death; in 1819 the poet John Sweets wrote, significantly, 'The night we went to Novello's there was a complete set-to of Saccherini and punning - I was completely tired of it'. Today, Saccherini is known chiefly for his famous 'Minuet', memorably played by a quintet of humbugs in the Ealing Studios film The Daily Liquorice, starring Sir Ulick Sweetness.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. P. 'Quail' O'Kelly: Reminiscences (London, 1826)
P. Highsmith: This Sweet Sickness (London, 1961)
H. Caries and E. J. Dentista: Musical Adventures in Radford Semele (Dawlish, 1965)
C. Ehrenpreis: "Frau Saccherinis Honorare: verdienste Lohn oder tageslichtliche Riuberei?", Musikalischen-Prosopographischen Untersuchungen fur den 18. Jahrhundert (1980), 387-465
LYNN GWANGOTA
