Conservati fedele

"Conservati fedele" (K. 23) is a concert aria for soprano and orchestra by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Mozart composed the aria in October 1765 while staying at The Hague during the family's British-European tour when he was nine years old. Both of the Mozart children, Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl, were quite ill at the time. It was slightly revised in January 1766, possibly for a performance for Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau. In his list of Wolfgang's works which he started in 1768 in Vienna, his father Leopold entered this piece as no. 2 of 15 Italian Arias, composed in London and The Hague (German: 15 Italiänische Arien theils in London, theils im Haag Componiert).

The Newberry Library (Case MS 6A, 48), Chicago, acquired the manuscript (6 sheets, 11 pages) through a bequest of the opera singer Claire Dux (Mrs Charles H. Swift). It was previously owned by Raphael Georg Kiesewetter () who gave the autograph to Aloys Fuchs as a gift. Both Fuchs and Maximilian Stadler confirmed its authenticity with their signatures on 7 December 1832. The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe also mentions an autograph (4 sheets, 7 pages) at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in its Malherbe collection.

The text is taken from Metastasio's libretto Artaserse which had been set to music by a number of composers, among them Johann Christian Bach whom Mozart had met just a short time before in London. Other Mozart works based on Metastasio texts include his last opera, La clemenza di Tito, and the earlier Il re pastore.

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