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Mozart
Requiem
Saturday, March 17, 2007, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, March 18, 2007, 2:00 p.m.
 Program Notes
STRING SYMPHONY No.7 IN D MINOR
Felix Mendelssohn 1809-1847
If ever there was a composer who did not fit the romantic picture of the struggling artist fighting for his physical and artistic survival, it was Felix Mendelssohn. Born with a silver spoon in his mouth, he was raised in affluence and comfort; his cultured and highly supportive family recognized and nurtured his precocious musical talent. His home was a Mecca for the intellectual elite of Germany, and the many family visitors also encouraged the prodigy, as well as his talented sister Fanny.
The String Symphony No.7 in d minor, composed in the winter of 1821-22, is one in a series of twelve such works that Mendelssohn composed between the ages of 12 and 14. By then he had already written a piano trio, a cantata, two violin sonatas, four piano sonatas, a few operettas and numerous lesser works. He was also already an accomplished pianist, organist and violinist. The String Symphonies were written for the musical soirees held every Sunday in his parent’s palatial home in Berlin, where Europe’s most famous poets, artists and musicians had a standing invitation. Later, Mendelssohn was embarrassed by these youthful works and suppressed them, considering them his
"apprenticeship". They remained unpublished until the late 1950s and were first recorded in 1971, 150 years after they were written.
The six early string symphonies reflected the influence of C.P.E. Bach, Haydn and Mozart. With No.7, Mendelssohn incorporated the more modern harmony of Beethoven into the Classical framework. No 7 is also Mendelssohn’s first experiment with a four-movement structure. In overall form, the Symphony closely conforms to the Classical sonata structure: an opening Allegro in sonata form, a slow movement in ABA ternary form, a minuet/trio and a spirited finale in either rondo or the rondo/sonata-form hybrid invented by Haydn.
The first movement is dramatic with an elaborate development, but one with a fairly predictable modulation pattern. The main theme recalls the storm and stress of Haydn's symphonies in minor keys.
The subsidiary theme involves contrasts of key, melodic contour and articulation.
There are also moments that hark as far back in style-time as Vivaldi.
The Andante, which in style might easily be mistaken for Haydn,
illustrates how even at a such a youthful age, Mendelssohn could creatively expand and elaborate on the conventional ternary form with varied repeats and fresh-sounding modulations, turning the B section of the ternary form into a true development section.
Although the third movement is marked Menuetto, its robust tempo and rhythm is closer in spirit to Haydn's foot-stomping minuets and Beethoven’s scherzos. Like the rest of the Symphony, it uses asymmetrical phrasing, both in the Minuet and Trio sections, avoiding the
"four-square" tendencies of novice composers.
The Finale is a lively rondo, its refrain a foreshadowing of the tarantella in the
"Italian" Symphony, No. 4.
But instead of making each of the episodes between the refrain different, Mendelssohn makes them form part of a large fugue.
In the second episode, he actually incorporates the rondo theme into the fugal counterpoint.
While all Classical composers were expected to be proficient in fugue writing – considered the most difficult and thereby exalted compositional device – Mendelssohn’s teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter, steeped his talented pupil in fugal counterpoint to an unprecedented extent. His influence shows up not only in Mendelssohn’s own writing but also in his admiration for Johann Sebastian Bach, whose works he championed and resurrected from undeserved obscurity.
REQUIEM IN D minor, K.626
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791
 Probably no single piece of classical music has generated as much speculation, rumor, mythology and – yes – money as Mozart’s Requiem. And all of it began with the melancholy fantasies of the composer himself, later enhanced by the reports of his widow Constanze.
The true story of the composition of the Requiem, while not a murder mystery, is still a bizarre one. The first part is well known and accurate: in July 1791 an
"unknown messenger" approached Mozart with a commission to write a Requiem Mass for his master, who wished to remain anonymous. Mozart – at the time desperately short of money – accepted the lucrative assignment, working on the Requiem intermittently along with some of his greatest music, including The Magic Flute. Overburdened with churning out as many compositions as he could in order to make ends meet for his family, Mozart sank into despondency and dyspepsia, leading to the nagging thought that he was being poisoned and the premonition that he was composing the Requiem for his own funeral. The fact that Mozart met his untimely death a mere six months after the appearance of the mysterious stranger – the Requiem still unfinished – provided grist for scholars and poets alike, culminating in the Hollywood blockbuster Amadeus.
In the early 1960s, however, the musicologist Dr. Otto Erich Deutsch found a report of the history of the Requiem in the archives of Wiener Neustadt by the hand of a certain Anton Herzog. An eye-witness to the whole affair, Herzog, reports that Mozart composed the Requiem for Herr Franz Count von Walsegg, an amateur musician and composer who was in the habit of commissioning works by established composers and passing them off as his own. When the Count’s 20-year-old wife died, he wanted to have two special memorials in her honor: one was a sculpture, and the other was the Requiem, which was to be played annually on the anniversary of her death.
Although von Walsegg even went to the extreme of copying the original scores in his own hand – leaving it to servants to copy the parts – in order to make his claims more credible, Herzog impishly indicates that the Count fooled no one. The fact that no one challenged the Count to his face, however, tells us something about the social mores of the decadent Habsburg Empire.
 Obviously aware of the tremendous talent he was hiring, von Walsegg paid well, including a down payment, and gave Mozart free rein in the composition of the Requiem. The superstitious and overworked Mozart, in turn, procrastinated. The same composer who could dash off a string quartet in a single sitting, never managed to finish the work and was dictating portions of it to his student, Franz Xavier Süssmayr, even on the day of his death. Mozart’s final illness, in fact, had nothing to do with the Requiem; it has now been fairly well established that he died from an acute attack of rheumatic fever months after he had conceived of the poisoning theory.
After Mozart’s death, Constanze needed the rest of the money from the unfinished commission. It was left to Süssmayr to finish the manuscript, after a number of other composers turned it down. Claiming to be very familiar with Mozart’s ideas about the work, he finished the missing parts. But since no original manuscript pages of the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei have been found, there remains a running argument among scholars as to where Mozart ends and Süssmayr begins.
The Requiem was finally performed in memoriam for the Countess von Walsegg’s on December 14, 1793, but not before it had been performed in January of the same year as a benefit for Constanze Mozart and her sons.
Despite this more pedestrian account of the genesis of the Requiem, the fact that Mozart attached to it such macabre significance clearly affected the emotional intensity of the work. It contains section after section of exquisitely poignant music. Notably absent is any sense of optimism about a better life hereafter.
Given the familiarity of the Requiem and
the tendency to hear it as a unified work, it can be disappointing to be
reminded that hands other than Mozart's had a significant role in its
composition. Süssmayr’s additions included: the orchestration of the "Kyrie," completion of the Dies irae, and the orchestration of the Offertory, based on Mozart’s notes – now lost. Of the composition of the Sanctus, Benedictus and the
"Angus Dei," perhaps based on sketches or conversations, Süssmayr wrote in a letter to the first publisher in 1800:
"The Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei were wholly composed by me; but, in order to give the work greater uniformity, I took the liberty of repeating the
"Kyrie" fugue at the line "cum sanctis" etc." For the first part of the Communion ("Lux aeterna"),
Süssmayr repeated music from the Introit ("Te decet hymnus") although he doesn’t mention this fact in his letter.
As for the completion of the "Dies irae,"
there is still some question. It is well known that Mozart had skipped
around in his composition of the piece, leaving incomplete, for example,
the last four lines of the "Dies irae" – only eight measures of the Lacrimosa are in Mozart’s hand. Recent scholarship has suggested, however, that Mozart probably had already composed this movement in his head and proceeded in his haste to the succeeding Offertory, and that Süssmayr, who was with him at the end, probably knew what Mozart had intended for the completion of the
"Lacrimosa."
Others have attempted to improve on Süssmayr but have less than he did on which to base their versions. With all its faults – and there are many – his version is the one most often performed and beloved.
The Requiem begins
with a short orchestral introduction, the theme, echoed by the chorus in
a somber fugal entry – initiated appropriately deep in the range of the
basses – on the words: "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" (Lord, grant them eternal rest).
The soprano soloist makes a brief appearance on the words "Te decet hymnus," to music that Süssmayr later used for the Communion.
Mozart’s setting of the "Kyrie" harks back
to a not uncommon practice of "stacking" liturgical texts, the chorus
sections singing more than one text simultaneously. Normally, the "Kyrie"
is set as a standard ABA form with the second invocation, "Christe eleison,"
constituting the middle section. In the Requiem, however, Mozart writes
a double fugue, the "Kyrie eleison," sung by the basses and
sopranos, the second, on the words "Christe eleison," by the altos and tenors. The movement is also a further indication of Mozart's debt to Handel, the first fugue subject, being the same as the chorus from Messiah
"And with His Stripes We Are Healed."
It is important to examine the centerpiece of Mozart's contribution to the Requiem, the
"Dies irae". This section of the Mass for the Dead, known as a Sequentia (Sequence) replaces the Alleluia during Lent and on other particularly serious occasions. It is also the liturgical focus of the Mass for the Dead. The poem, written by Thomas of Celano (ca. 1200-1270), consists of 17 verses of three lines each, with a rhyme scheme of AAB in four feet of trochaic tetrameter. When set to music, like the other text-heavy parts of the Mass it is traditionally divided into shorter sections whose music reflects the meaning of the specific verses.
Mozart divided the Dies irae in to five parts:
"Dies irae" (Day of wrath); "Tuba mirum" (The trumpet's
wondrous sound); "Rex tremendae" (King of awesome majesty); "Recordare, Jesu pie"
(Remember, Jesus, that I am the reason for your journey); "Confutatis maledictis"
(Once the damned are sent to the flames) "Lacrimosa dies illa" (Day of weeping). Other composers, most notably Giuseppe Verdi, divided the text in nine sections in order to more finely mirror the words in the music. The agnostic and gentle church musician, Gabriel Fauré, left it out altogether.
Mozart begins the first two verses of the sequentia, its famous words recalling the prophesy of the day of wrath when all souls will be judged, with a violent chorus.
The next five verses he gives to each member of the quartet of soloists
in turn. A trombone solo begins and accompanies the "Tuba mirum," a bass solo – the closest Mozart comes to a true aria.
The tenor takes up with the two verses beginning "Mors stupebit," which describes how all nature and even death itself will be struck dumb, as the book of judgment will be brought out as testimony of the deeds of all people.
The alto, singing "Judex ergo cum sedebit" describes God sitting in judgment.
The soprano completes the musical image of the sinner before the throne
of judgment with "Quid sum miser"
where she is joined by the other three soloists.
"Rex tremendae majestatis" is a plea for mercy from the chorus.
The quartet of soloists elaborates upon the prayer by appealing directly
to Jesus in the four verses beginning "Recordare, Jesu pie."
The mood shifts briefly, but violently, with a musical depiction of the
damned and the saved in two verses beginning "Confutatis maledictis."
Just as the authentic Mozart ends at this point, some scholars posit that Celano's
poem ended here as well. The verse beginning "Lacrimosa" goes back to describing the day of weeping, adding additional supplications, but the verse pattern and rhyme scheme are abandoned. As for the Requiem,
on the basis of the sheer elegance of the vocal line alone, there is no
doubt in our minds that the "Lacrimosa" is Mozart's, although the orchestration is certainly Süssmayr's.
The final part of the Requiem composed by
Mozart was the Offertory, a standard part of the Catholic mass, the text
for which changes according to the day or occasion. Mozart divided it
into two musical sections, the first, "Domine Jesu Christe!"
a plea to free the souls of the faithful in fulfillment to the promise
made to Abraham and his descendents ("Quam olim Abrahae promisisti, et semini ejus").
The second part, "Hostias et preces tibi," also for the chorus, is the offering of prayers and sacrifices.
Mozart rounds out the movement with a repeat of God's promise to Abraham.
It is at this point that the burden of composing new music passed to Süssmayr.
Among the inadequacies pointed out by Süssmayr's critics is the paltry fugue in the Sanctus
movement for the "Hosanna in excelsis."
The "Benedictus," in its role as centerpiece of the larger Sanctus movement, is a more elaborate piece, scored for the quartet of soloists. Setting this text for one or more soloists follows a standard eighteenth-century tradition.
Because the
"Sanctus" is part of the ordinary of the Mass, Süssmayr would have had virtually hundreds of models – which unfortunately did not prevent him from writing in some incorrect harmonic progressions that continue to dog editors.
The "Agnus Dei," also part of the ordinary
of the Mass – although substituting the text, "dona eis requiem" (grant
them rest) for "dona nobis pacem" (Grant us peace) – is also more effective than the
"Sanctus." Süssmayr conceived it as a final fervent plea, its minor key giving it more than a hint of fear that it might not be granted.
As mentioned above, Süssmayr
recycled the soprano solo from the Introit and the "Kyrie"
fugue for the setting of the Communion, "Lux aeterna, luceat eis" (May eternal light, shine on them). And it is certainly conceivable that Mozart had conveyed to his friend and student that he wanted the entire Requiem to be cyclical in this manner.
Finally, it should be noted that everyone from musical scholars to the general public has been so focused on Mozart's internal drama surrounding the Requiem that little attention has been paid to its place in music history. While there were concerted Requiem Masses starting from the early seventeenth century, many of them commissioned for the funerals and/or memorials of European princes, most of them have been lost to posterity. Those few that remain have never achieved sufficient interest to be championed even by the early music movement. Excerpts from the Requiem
Mass were also set to music for large orchestra and operatic soloists –
particularly the "Dies irae." Given Mozart's groundbreaking innovations as a musical dramatist, it is probably fair to posit that none of the predecessors had achieved such dramatic coherence and power. Certainly, the great subsequent settings of the Requiem owed much to this fragment and its unfortunate creator.
Program notes copyright ©
Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2007
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