Ah, lo previdi! - Ah, t’invola agl’occhi miei - Deh, non varcar K272

Mozart first met Josepha Duscheck when she came to Salzburg in August 1777 to visit her grandfather, whose fortune she was eventually to inherit. Whether or not Mozart fell in love with her on that occasion, as has been suggested, he certainly set out to impress her. The piece he wrote for her in Salzburg, Ah, lo previdi!, is the most spectacular of all his works for solo voice and orchestra. Its dramatic effect is all the more remarkable in that it plunges without preparation into the climax of a full-scale opera libretto, Cigna-Santi’s Andromeda, which he probably knew through a recent setting by Giovanni Paisiello. Andromeda’s lover having been fatally wounded by Perseus, she longs for her own death so that she might accompany him on his voyage to the far bank of the river Lethe.

Not just a matter of an introductory recitative and a brilliant aria, Mozart’s scena features two main sections, an Allegro aria in C minor and an Andante cavatina in B flat major, each preceded by an expressively detailed recitative. In the opening recitative the orchestra’s violent gestures, chromatic harmonies and syncopated rhythms encourage Andromeda to work up her fury with Perseus, which she proceeds to hurl at him in a impressively sustained fit of vituperation (“Ah, t’invola agl’occhi miei”). The longer second recitative effects a gradual change of mood from anger to pathos, the latter reflected in some compassionate writing for strings. In the cavatina (“Deh, non varcar”), on the other hand, Andromeda’s most sympathetic ally proves to be a solo oboe which, accompanied by now muted strings, performs a virtual duet with the lamenting heroine.