With the news that 149 lost works of Antonio Salieri have come to light, now seems like a good time to remind you about this year’s Bard Music Festival, “Mozart and His World” (to be held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, August 7-16).

Is there Salieri on the program? Why, yes, yes there is. It falls under the category of “His World.” You see, even when the focus of the festival is on a well-known composer – and what composer is better-known than Mozart? – the planning committee goes into overdrive, racking their brains and spackling in around the edges with composers and works your average person-on-the-street may not have ever heard of, and certainly have never heard.

My preference, of course, is for the years Bard tackles figures such as Bohuslav Martinu or Carlos Chávez or Ralph Vaughan Williams or Erich Wolfgang Korngold; but under the Mozart umbrella, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Josef Mysliveček, Paul Wranitzky, Emanuel Schickaneder, Giovanni Paisiello, Muzio Clementi, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, Franz Xaver Mozart (Mozart’s composer son), and composer sons of the great Johann Sebastian Bach will have their moments to shine. Some of the works will be quite substantial, such as Michael Haydn’s Requiem in C minor.

And these are only the composers you might have heard of, through reading about Mozart in histories or program notes. How often, if ever, have you actually heard their music?

I don’t care about your level of expertise, or how jaded you may be, between the unusual repertoire, the imaginative juxtaposition of pieces, the pre-concert talks, and the Saturday morning panels with scholars and historians, you will ALWAYS learn something. Even if I personally may bristle at the idea of a Mozart festival – nothing wrong with it, it just doesn’t excite me – once you get me in the hall, I know it’s going to be fabulous.

The Bard Music Festival is part of the college’s larger celebration of the arts, Bard SummerScape (June 25-August 16), which encompasses opera, theater, dance, and cabaret at the campus’ Spiegeltent. If Mozart really doesn’t float your boat, there will be a fully-staged production of Richard Strauss’ opera “Die ägyptische Helena” (“The Egyptian Helen,” July 24-August 2). When’s the last time you heard that?

The Mozart festival will conclude with a semi-staged performance of “The Abduction from the Seraglio.”

Hang in there: 2027 will bring “Gershwin and His World.” That’s a subject that can shoot out tendrils in so many different, fascinating directions.

For tickets and information about Bard SummerScape, the Bard Music Festival, and “Mozart and His World,” visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/.

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A blurb about the rediscovered Salieri works (which include canons, duets, and trios, in the composer’s hand), with a link to the original German source:

https://slippedisc.com/2026/06/found-149-autograph-works-by-salieri/

A selection from Salieri’s “Prima la musica e poi le parole” (“First the music and then the words”), first performed on the same occasion that introduced Mozart’s “Schauspieldirektor” (“The Impresario”), and his collaboration with Mozart, the cantata “Per la ricuperate salute di Ofelia” (“For the recovered health of Ophelia”), rediscovered in 2015, will be included on a Bard Music Festival concert on August 9.

@fishercenterbard