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Program Notes for Virginia Symphony Orchestra
Classics #10 - Mozart’s Requiem - 12-14 April 2013
By Laurie Shulman ©2012
First North American Serial Rights Only
Mozart is everyman’s favorite composer. Not every individual, but Everyman. More
recordings are available of Mozart’s music than of any other composer, including Bach. That fact
alone is ample evidence of his widespread popularity with the general public. Children beam
with pleasure when they hear the lovely strains of Eine kleine Nachtmusik and Papageno’s arias
from The Magic Flute. As for adolescents: much of their generation may temporarily eschew all
classical music as uncool (or some other less savory adjective), but eventually it is Mozart’s
music that will draw them back, whether through the magic of The Marriage of Figaro, the
majesty of the Jupiter Symphony, or the meltingly lovely strains of his piano concerti.
What is it about his music that draws us in and enchants us, even with repeated hearings?
At the most basic level, Mozart was a brilliant melodist. His themes stay in our ears long after we
exit the concert hall.
There is far more to Mozart than melody alone, of course. Harmony and rhythm are the
other essential elements of music, and Mozart excelled at both – but so did many of his
contemporaries. What sets him apart is that ineffable quality of genius. It is probably indefinable,
but manifests itself in several ways. One is his unerring instinct for musical architecture. Another
is charm: instant appeal to our best selves. Other factors are balance, not only the balance of
voices and instruments, but also the more abstract matter of emotional balance. Add in elegance
and flair, and these ingredients become a recipe for perfection.
“Collectively, Mozart’s works are the most perfect music we have,” declares Music
Director JoAnn Falletta. For these April programs, she has chosen late works from three genres,
representing a broad overview of his incomparable genius.
She opens with the Overture to Don Giovanni, K.525. “Don Giovanni is, to me, the
ideal curtain raiser,” says Ms. Falletta. “Mozart is at the top of his game. It’s dramatic and
romantic, with so much of the theater in those thrilling D minor chords at the start. Even if you
don’t know the story of the opera, you can’t help but respond to that visceral pull.”
Mozart composed concerti for violin, several wind instruments, and piano. The 27 piano
concerti range from Mozart’s childhood to 1791, nearly eclipsing his other concerted works; the
Lenten series for piano from the mid-1780s and the late B-flat Major Concerto, K.595 (1791) are
counted among Mozart’s greatest masterpieces.
Only one instrumental concerto rivals them: the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622,
which is on the highest level. Mozart composed it – along with his Clarinet Trio, K.498, the
Clarinet Quintet, K.581, and other works -- for Anton Stadler, an exceptional Austrian clarinetist
and basset horn player who was the first great virtuoso on the instrument. Because the clarinet
itself was still fairly new (it was not a standard member of the orchestra until about 1800),
Mozart’s concerto was a first. Many would argue that no subsequent composer for clarinet has
surpassed this magnificent concerto.
“The Clarinet Concerto is the ultimate piece for the instrument,” say Ms. Falletta. “How
wonderful it is that he met Stadler and that they became friends.” Mozart reserved the key of A
major for works of transparent joy. Here, that quality is occasionally shadowed by passages of
emotional depth that delve deep within the human soul. A reduced orchestra gives the concerto
intimacy that approaches chamber music.
Following intermission, the Virginia Symphony Chorus joins the orchestra in Mozart’s
Requiem, K. 626, a storied work with its own remarkable history. The genesis is well known: a
mysterious stranger approached Mozart in summer 1791 with a commission for a Requiem.
During the last months of his life, Mozart worked on it simultaneously with his last two operas,
Die Zauberflöte and La clemenza di Tito, and the Clarinet Concerto. According to legend, he
became obsessed with the piece and grew to believe that he was writing his own Requiem. The
work was incomplete at his death.
That unfinished state has led to controversy. Mozart’s student Franz Xaver Süssmayr
completed the Requiem in its best known version. A number of modern scholars, however, have
taken issue with Süssmayr’s completion. Some point out that at least two other Mozart pupils –
Joseph Eybler and Franz Jakob Freystädtler – contributed to the fleshing out of Mozart’s sketches.
Others complain that Süssmayr’s writing lacked expertise, imagination, and distinction. A handful
of these critics have produced completions of their own.
Ms. Falletta is a proponent of the Süssmayr version which is, after all, closest to the
source. “The entire Requiem is so unusual in its style,” she points out. “With all the
counterpoint and fugues, Mozart was looking backward to the era of Bach and Handel. There’s
a more Baroque quality to the choruses in particular. This work always elicits a great emotional
response from the audience. And we love to feature our wonderful chorus!”
Overture to Don Giovanni, K.527
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Born 27 January, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria
Died 5 December, 1791 in Vienna, Austria
Anyone who has attended a performance of Don Giovanni knows the shivering impact of
the overture's opening D-minor chords, with their ominous foreboding of the drama to follow.
Rarely one to dwell at length on the dark side, Mozart soon switches gears. The overture shifts
to D-major and an allegro tempo. We move from music of menace and revenge to music
reflecting the manic gaiety and determined pleasure-seeking that dominate much of the opera's
action.
The concert version of the overture is like an eighteenth-century symphonic first
movement: a slow introduction in minor mode, followed by a fully developed sonata-allegro in
the parallel major. We would expect no less of Mozart. The genius of the overture lies in the
success with which it captures the spirit of the opera without quoting from all its famous
numbers. Only the Commendatore's vengeance music, the D-minor chords alluded to above,
return during the stage action proper. The overture's entire D-major portion is made up of new
themes, expressing perfectly the Don's devil-may-care bravado.
The overture is scored for pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, and trumpets;
3 trombones, timpani and strings.
Concerto in A major for clarinet and orchestra, K.622
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
Completed in autumn of 1791, only weeks before Mozart's premature death, the Clarinet
Concerto was Mozart's last concerto for any instrument. Certainly it is his greatest for winds, on
a level with the magnificent mature piano concertos.
K.622 was also the composer's last
completed composition except for the Masonic Cantata, K.623, from November 1791. The
Requiem, K.626, remained unfinished at his death.
Mozart came of age writing for the court ensemble maintained by the Archbishop of
Salzburg, which did not include clarinets. He first discovered the instrument in 1777 and 1778
during visits to Mannheim, a political and cultural center that boasted one of Europe’s finest
orchestras in the second half of the 18th century. Mozart was delighted with the clarinet’s
creamy, sweet timbre. He was equally impressed by its suave presence as both ensemble and
solo instrument. From Mannheim, he wrote to his father Leopold in December 1778, “Ah, if only
we [the Salzburg orchestra] had clarinets too! You cannot imagine the glorious effect of a
symphony with flutes, oboes, and clarinets.”
By the time Wolfgang moved permanently to Vienna in 1781, clarinets were becoming
more common. Mozart almost certainly met Anton Stadler (1753-1812) during his first months
in the capital. By then, both Anton Stadler and his brother Johann – also a fine clarinetist – were
permanent members of the imperial court orchestra as well as the Emperor’s Harmonie [wind
band]. Anton Stadler was widely regarded as the finest player of his day. He and Mozart were
bound not only by music, but also by their involvement in Masonry. Both were members of
Vienna’s Beneficence Lodge. Stadler played Mozart’s Masonic works there regularly; they also
played chamber music together in private gatherings. By 1787, Mozart’s letters mention Stadler
as if he were one of his inner circle.
We have Stadler to thank for Mozart’s three chamber works with clarinet: the splendid
Quintet for piano and winds, K.452; the so-called Kegelstatt Trio for clarinet, viola and piano,
K.498, and the lovely Quintet for clarinet and strings, K.581. Stadler was also the intended
player for the glorious clarinet obbligato part in arias from La clemenza di Tito. Stadler’s most
enduring legacy, however, is surely the magnificent concerto on this weekend’s program.
The instrument Mozart had in mind was actually the basset clarinet, a type of clarinet that
evolved about 1770 with a range slightly lower than that of the modern clarinet. Stadler was a
specialist in this lower range, known as chalumeau. (The term is still used to describe the lowest
register of the clarinet.) When Mozart’s concerto was published, the clarinet part was altered in
order to facilitate performance on the modern instrument that Mr. Plane plays.
As one might expect, the concerto focuses on the soloist's beauty of sound. While the
full orchestral complement includes flutes, bassoons and horns, Mozart tends to limit the
accompaniment of the solo passages to strings, lending a chamber music intimacy to the work.
The other woodwinds join for the full orchestral tuttis, which constitute some of Mozart's most
sophisticated symphonic writing. There are no provisions for solo cadenzas, although there is
ample opportunity for the soloist to display a brilliant technique, particularly in the lively finale.
Finally, the selection of A major as the key for this work is significant, for all Mozart's
compositions in A share a transparency of texture and sheer loveliness of melody that places
them in a special category of their own.
The score calls for pairs of flutes, bassoons and horns, solo clarinet and strings.
Requiem, K.626
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart
A poignant farewell
In December 1790, Joseph Haydn departed Vienna for a trip to London under the
auspices of the violinist and entrepreneur Johann Peter Salomon. He spent his last day in the city
with Mozart, his good friend despite the 24 year difference in their ages. When they said
goodbye, Mozart embraced his friend and said, "Papa, I fear that this will be our last farewell."
Haydn, no longer young at 59, took Mozart's remark to be concern for his welfare on such a long
journey to a distant country. As it happened, Mozart's words were prophetic of his own death.
Haydn in fact outlived his younger contemporary by 18 years, surviving two London trips and
producing an astonishing quantity of superb music in his old age. When he died in 1809, the
work performed at his funeral was the one on this program: the Mozart Requiem.
Thanks to Peter Shaffer's award-winning play Amadeus (1979) and Miloš Forman's
remarkable film (1984) based on the play, Mozart and his music were absorbed into mainstream
culture decades ago. Reinforcement came in 1991, with the bicentennial observation of Mozart’s
death, and in 2006, when festivals worldwide celebrated his 250th birthday.
A singular benefit of these Mozart phenomena has been more widespread familiarity with
Mozart's music, which continues in unabated popularity on piano recitals, in concert halls, opera
houses, and elsewhere. This ubiquity has spawned a generation of new Mozart-lovers, who are
discovering the beauty and variety of his works for the first time. But any popularization is
something of a double-edged sword. Unfortunately, in hand with this exposure have been a
number of misconceptions and factual errors about the circumstances of Mozart's life and death.
Misconceptions and distortions
Nowhere is this problem more evident or more acute than in the case of the Requiem,
K.626. Shaffer's play and Forman's film adjusted characters and situations for maximum
dramatic and cinematic effect. Inevitably this resulted in some distortion of what actually took
place. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction, and the circumstances surrounding the composition
of the Requiem are so remarkable that no embellishment is necessary.
Mysterious commission
Mozart rarely composed without a specific commission, and the Requiem was no
exception. During the summer of 1791, he was hard at work on a collaboration with Emanuel
Schikaneder for a comic opera, The Magic Flute. The new opera went into rehearsal in July.
About the same time, a mysterious stranger presented himself to Mozart at his residence, with an
unusual assignment: a Requiem mass, to be composed and delivered as soon as possible. The
stranger declined to identify himself or the originator of the commission, and cautioned Mozart
not to attempt to learn anything further about his employer.
We know these facts from several written reports by Mozart's contemporaries, including
his widow Constanze and her second husband, Georg Nikolaus Nissen, who was one of Mozart's
first biographers. Only after Mozart's death did the full story emerge. The originator of the
Requiem commission was revealed to be one Count Walsegg-Stuppach, an Austrian nobleman
whose estate lay about 30 miles south of Vienna. A great music lover, the Count fancied himself
a composer. Possessed of little natural talent himself, he developed the habit of commissioning
works by well-known composers for private performance at his estate. There he recopied the
works, passing them off as his own.
In February 1791 the Count's young wife died, only 20. Stricken, Walsegg resolved to
pay homage to her memory by having a statue of her erected, and by commissioning a Requiem
mass to be performed annually on the anniversary of her death. It was he who sent the
messenger to Mozart asking for the Requiem. Because he hoped to claim credit for the work
himself, Walsegg instructed his representative to maintain as much secrecy as possible.
Distraction: a royal commission for an opera
Needing money, Mozart accepted the commission and was given partial payment in
advance. He set to work on the new project with alacrity, then put it aside when a more
compelling assignment arrived. Leopold II, who succeeded his brother Joseph II as Holy Roman
Emperor in 1790, was to be crowned King of Bohemia. Mozart was asked to compose an opera
seria to commemorate the event. The result was his last opera, La clemenza di Tito. Composing
with lightning speed, he completed most of the opera in an astonishing 18 days, before travelling
to Prague to supervise rehearsals and the premiere. In the midst of all this frenetic activity, he
continued to work closely with Schikaneder in preparation for the opening of The Magic Flute.
One starts to understand the extreme degree of nervous exhaustion that would have resulted from
his pushing himself so hard.
Mental and physical health problems
Following his return from Prague in September 1791, Mozart resumed work on the
Requiem, giving it his full attention again. The unidentified emissary kept calling on him to ask
after its progress. Unable to determine the origin of the eerie commission and exhausted from
overwork, he became convinced that a messenger from the netherworld had been sent to him,
and that he was composing his own Requiem.
At this point Mozart's health began to deteriorate more seriously, with the final illness
that would claim his life in early December. Grappling with dizziness, headaches, swelling of
hands and feet, and near-constant nausea, he continued to work on the Requiem. With the
assistance of a young composition student named Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766-1803), he
sketched many of the movements, orchestrating the first few measures of some, concentrating on
the vocal lines, providing only limited instrumental detail in others. At Mozart’s death on 5
December, the Requiem lay incomplete.
Widow’s work
Constanze Mozart was unable to collect the commission due her late husband until the
missing parts were completed. First she proposed the project to the court conductor, one Joseph
Eybler, who declined. She then approached several other Viennese composers, eventually
settling for Süssmayr, who was only twenty-five at the time of Mozart's death. Although he was
not even her second choice, Süssmayr had collaborated on the recitatives for La Clemenza di Tito
and worked more closely than anyone with Mozart during the last months.
One of his cleverest ploys to conceal the participation of a second composer was to
conclude the work with the repetition of the music heard at the beginning. Mozart had used this
same type of self-quotation in earlier masses, so the tactic was stylistically consistent--and very
convincing. So successful was Süssmayr's reconstruction and completion that the Requiem has
become one of the most frequently performed choral works in the classical repertoire. Also
because of Süssmayr, the Requiem is a thorny topic in Mozart scholarship, with musicologists
and performers debating how much of the music is Mozart's and how much his gifted student's.
(One thing is certain: there is no part of Salieri in it, as the Forman film implies!) The Requiem's
inherent beauty and remarkable contrapuntal skill assure its following regardless of questions
about complete authenticity.
About the music
Such an embarrassment of riches graces the Requiem that singling out individual
movements is really gratuitous. The overall impact of the work is heightened by the relationship
of each movement to the next. Mozart’s subtle migration between tonal centers and his
negotiation between major and minor modes exercise their psychological power. But the sound
that rings in our ears for hours afterward is the dark, vigorous fugue of the Kyrie, repeated at the
end of the work with the text of Cum sanctis tuis. Its resolution on stark open fifths, unsweetened
by a major third and unmitigated by even a D-minor chord, is a chilling reminder that this is
music of death.
The Mozart-Süssmayr Requiem is scored for two bassoons, two basset horns (played by
clarinets in most modern performances), two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, organ,
soprano, alto, tenor and bass soloists, mixed chorus, and strings.
A Word on Mozart’s Name
Mozart was born in Salzburg on 27 January 1756 and died in Vienna 5 December 1791,
not quite thirty-six years old. He was baptized with the names Joannes Chrysost[omus]
Wolfgangus Theophilus. His parents gave him the name Johann Chrysostom because he was
born on that saint’s day. Wolfgang was the first name of Mozart’s maternal grandfather. The
name ‘Theophilus’ (Greek for ‘beloved of God’) came from the godfather, Joannes Theophilus
Pergmayr, a Salzburg businessman and local official. Days after the boy’s birth, Leopold
referred to his infant son as Gottlieb (the German for Theophilus). ‘Amadeus’ is the Latinate
form.
In letters, the composer signed his name variously as ‘Mozart,’ ‘W.A. Mozart,’ ‘Wolfg.
Amad. Mozart,’ ‘MZT,’ ‘Wolf. Amdè Mozart’ and, most frequently, ‘Wolfgang Amadè Mozart.’
As a boy in Italy, he occasionally signed in the Italianate spelling: ‘Wolfgango Amadeo.’ Despite
Peter Shaffer’s stage play Amadeus and Miloš Forman’s even more popular film, Mozart did not
use the name Amadeus.
In recent years, the spelling ‘Wolfgang Amadè Mozart’ has supplanted the old-fashioned
‘Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’ in common usage and printed programs. The glory of his music
remains unchanged.
– L.S. ©2012