The work of Mozart is the best known, if only because the composer's output receives more examination. Composed in March to July 1771 when Mozart was 15 years old,
K. 118 (74c) is a 140-minute azione sacra on a text by Metastasio tracing the story of
Judith beheading Holofernes from the biblical Book of Judith. It was commissioned in March 1771 by Giuseppe Ximenes, Prince of
Aragon, while Mozart and his father
Leopold were on the way home to Salzburg from their first
journey to Italy. It is the only
oratorio Mozart ever wrote. Its two parts comprise sixteen
arias, with
solo or
choral parts, scored for soloists, choir and
orchestra. Not performed in Mozart's lifetime, La Betulia liberata is shaped stylistically to works by
Leonardo Leo and
Johann Adolph Hasse.
Recent high-profile performances of Mozart's setting include one in the 2006
Salzburg Festival conducted by
Christoph Poppen, as part of the M22 series, masterminded by Bernhard Fleischer to perform all Mozart's operas (and the only oratorio) in 2006 Salzburg Festival. The performance was recorded and subsequently released as DVD. (See
Recordings section below.) In 2010 both the Mozart and the Jommelli settings were performed side by side at the
Salzburg Whitsun and
Ravenna festivals under the leadership of
Riccardo Muti.
Antonio Salieri in 1820 revised
Florian Leopold Gassmann's La Betulia liberata by shortening some recitatives and arias, and adding additional choirs taken from Gassmann's other compositions.[2][3]
As a student of
Antonio Salieri,
Franz Schubert set "Te solo adoro", Anchior's aria from the second part, as a composition exercise for four voices in November 1812.[4] The exercise was first published in 1940, and, catalogued as
D. 34, again in the New Schubert Edition in 1986.[5]