Season Concert 1: Memorial
Sunday, September 11, 2022
3:00 pm & 7:00 pm @ Penn State Recital Hall
Claire DeArmitt, Mezzo-Soprano
Joined by the State College Choral Society & the SCAHS Master Singers
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Requiem in D minor, K. 626
Concert Sponsors: Arthur Curtze, Nina & George Woskob
Program Notes
In 1781, after being “booted” out of the employ of Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg (the process included a literal “kick in the butt” by the Archbishop’s steward, Arco) Mozart took up residence in Vienna where he would interact with some of the most famous and powerful people in the world. Here in the largest German-speaking city in the world he would spend the final ten years of his life.
1857 lithograph by Franz Schramm, titled Ein Moment aus den letzten Tagen Mozarts ("Moment from the Last Days of Mozart"). Mozart, with the score of the Requiem on his lap, gives Süssmayr last-minute instructions. Constanze is to the side and the messenger is leaving through the main door.
Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor is one of the most famous musical compositions ever written, its notoriety not only on account its beautiful music but also on account of the story of its composition.
Just a few weeks before his own death in 1791 at the age of only thirty-five, Mozart was approached by a gentleman acting on behalf of an anonymous patron who wished to commission a Requiem Mass from him. This patron we now know to be Count Franz von Wazlsegg-Stuppach, whose wife had died in February that year. The Count, who was a keen and able amateur musician, wished to be regarded as a major composer and saw an opportunity in this commission to further his own ends by passing off the Requiem as his own. He conducted all business transactions with Mozart in secrecy so as to preserve his own anonymity; sending a business agent to act on his behalf. On several occasions this gentleman arrived unannounced at the composer’s house. To the ailing Mozart, well known for his superstitious nature and quite possibly sensing his own impending demise, these mysterious visitations had all the hallmarks of the supernatural.
By the time Wolfgang started work on the Requiem he was already terminally ill, and parts of the composition were actually written while on his death-bed. With the fear that he might die before he could complete it, payment for the work had already been received. His wife Costanze feared that if the work was handed over incomplete the commissioning patron would refuse to accept it and expect his money to be returned. She therefore decided to elicit the help of some other composer who might be able and willing to finish it for her. Several attempts were made, notably by Joseph Eybler and Maximilian Stadler, but none came to fruition.
Eventually Constanze approached Franz Süssmayr, one of Mozart’s more able pupils who had been with him a good deal during the final year of his life. Süssmayr had several times played through the completed parts and discussed the instrumentation with Mozart. Why, then, had Süssmayr not been Constanze’s first choice? He was the last choice despite the fact that he had recently been the composer’s closest musical confidante. This is but one of several intriguing questions, the answers to which we will almost certainly never know.
Of the work’s twelve movements Mozart only managed to complete the opening Kyrie in its entirety. For most of the others he had written the vocal parts and a figured bass line (a kind of harmonic shorthand), leaving just the orchestration, for which he had clearly indicated his intentions. These movements may therefore be regarded as essentially the work of the master. For reasons unknown, Mozart postponed writing the seventh movement, the Lacrymosa, until after writing movements eight and nine, but managed only the first eight bars before death at last overtook him. He left a number of other fragments, such as the trombone solo at the opening of the Tuba Mirum. Süssmayr completed the Lacrymosa, and composed the whole of the last three movements, Mozart having passed away before he could even begin these sections.
Süssmayr used substantial parts of the orchestration begun by Stadler and Eybler, and for the closing passages he repeated Mozart’s own music from the opening movement, an idea which according to Constanze, Mozart himself had suggested. Much more daunting, however, was the task of writing the entire Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei himself, the prospect of which had defeated his reputedly more talented fellow-composers. Eybler, for instance, despite contributing some worthwhile orchestration, had managed only two very unconvincing bars of the Lacrymosa before giving up and returning the entire portfolio to Constanze. Süssmayr was evidently made of sterner stuff, and by the end of 1792 he had finished the task. Opinions differ as to the quality of the Süssmayr movements, though it is generally agreed that the Agnus Dei is the most successful.
A copy was made of the completed score before it was handed over to Count Wazlsegg-Stuppach’s envoy, but no mention was made of Süssmayr’s part in its composition. For many years it was generally believed that Mozart had indeed written the entire Requiem. Amongst Mozart’s circle, however, it was common knowledge that the composer had not lived to see its completion. Consequently, some considerable controversy later ensued as to the work’s authenticity, compounded by the fact that the Count’s score disappeared for nearly fifty years. It was rediscovered only in 1839. Fortunately, this complete score and Mozart’s original, unfinished manuscripts did both survive, and are now securely housed in the Vienna State Library.
The Introitus begins with one of the most extraordinary openings in music. Against the gentle rocking of bass line and string chords, a lonely bassoon enters first, followed by a basset horn (a low-pitched, mellow-toned clarinet), and then the other basset horn and bassoon.
The music connects attacca to the Kyrie, which is a very bold, emotionally powerful fugue.
The next six movements belong to what is called the Sequence. In a church funeral, this would have occurred later in the service. But in a concert setting, the Kyrie leads immediately to the first movement of the Sequence, the famous Dies irae. This depiction of the Day of Wrath is wildly impassioned, evoking the fateful doom Mozart earlier created in the Commendatore scenes of Don Giovanni.
In the Tuba mirum (awesome trumpet). Mozart has constructed a virtual opera scene with four vocal characters. It begins with arguably the most famous trombone solo in classical music and ends with profound beauty and hope.
The next movement, Rex tremendae, is also operatic in scope - vast and panoramic. The orchestra sets forth a grand Baroque gesture, an introduction to the choral summons to the almighty King (“Rex”). This all comes to an intense climax. Then, abruptly, everything changes: it’s piano now, and the chorus pleads “Save me, O fountain of mercy!”
The Recordare is one of Mozart’s most sublime creations, with so many contrasting emotions. Much of the piece evokes a floating feeling of serenity.
The Confutatis is another dramatic movement. Against the pummeling ostinato of the strings, the tenors and basses cry out that the damned will be consigned to flames. This is brilliantly contrasted with the pure tones of the sopranos and altos (“Call me one of the blessed ones.”)
There follows the Lacrimosa (The Day of Weeping.) the Offertory in two parts composed by Mozart and Süssmayr, the Sanctus, probably all Süssmayr’s work, the Benedictus, the Agnus Dei, probably composed by Süssmayr and the Lux aeterna where Süssmayr brings back music from Mozart’s first movement, setting it to the new words. There is some evidence that this was Mozart’s intent. We will probably never know.
Program notes by Conductor Laureate, Douglas Meyer.