For me, there is no better answer about how to spend my time while I am doing “Shelter in Place” than to listen to the genius of Mozart.
Today I want to tell you about London-born Anna Selina (“Nancy”) Storace who came to Vienna as part of an Italian opera ensemble in 1783 and remained to become the first Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro in 1786.
The scene and rondo, “Ch’io mi scordi di te? … Non temer, amato bene,” K. 505, was written in December of that year for Nancy’s Vienna farewell concert (February 23, 1787), prior to her return to London. Mozart created the complementary piano part for his own performance, resulting in a unique sort of duo concertante, a melding of opera aria and piano concerto.
The text had already been used for an aria (K. 490) inserted into a private amateur performance of Idomeneo in 1786, and clearly Mozart found the words, in his new and superior musical setting, uniquely suited to the occasion of the Nancy Storace farewell concert.
I kept listening to it perhaps three times today. Here it for your enjoyment, as sung by the amazing Christiane Karg. The meaning of the Italian words is really not that important.
