"Mozart, Perfection, and Joy"
By HRJ
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) is perfection and joy. In his music everything flows and sparkles. Even in the darkest moments (think of his Requiem), in the background beats a hopeful softness. Opera, symphony, sonata or string quartet... Mozart successfully tackled all genres. In his art, framed in Classicism, both technical perfection and overflowing ingenuity stand out.
During the seventh program of the Summer Season 2022 (August 13 and 14) the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería will perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C major, K. 503 (1786), conducted by Carlos Miguel Prieto and featuring Anne-Marie McDermott as soloist.
"What should I know about Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25?"
During the 19th century, Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 was considered cold and boring. And it is that from romantic ears, eager for overflowing emotions, the expressive moderation of this work was unattractive. However, this moderation began to be attractive in the twentieth century, whose openness to different aesthetics caused conductors and performers to rescue Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25.
On Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 (written in 1786, the same year in which he wrote his two previous piano concertos, 23 and 24, as well as the operas The Marriage of Figaro y The Undertaker), Juan Arturo Brennan points out.
"The brilliant opening of the first movement of this concerto places it in the group of concertos that some musicologists have described as military concertosconsidering the character of Mozart and his music, I prefer to call them martial concertos. Indeed, in addition to the majestic beginning of the work, later on we can find a delicate marching theme that Mozart skillfully alternates between major and minor mode to return later to the martial realm of the beginning. Then, as usual in Mozart, the martial gives way to the delicacy of the central movement and a playful and optimistic third movement. This is a scheme that Mozart invariably used throughout his concerto production, and in each work he knew how to color it with the stamp of the new, of the absolutely individual".
"Who will perform Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 with the Minería Symphony Orchestra?"
American pianist Anne-Marie McDermott, who studied at the Manhattan School of Music with Dalmo Carra, Constance Keene and John Browning.
He has performed as soloist with major orchestras in the United States (New York Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Houston Symphony and Buffalo Symphony) and his recitals include performances at venues such as Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall and Schubert Club.
From his discography - comprising 11 albums - stand out the piano sonatas of Sergei Prokofiev (Bridge, 2009), two volumes with the piano sonatas of Joseph Haydn (Bridge, 2014 and 2018) and the complete works for piano and orchestra of George Gershwin with the Dallas Symphony under the direction of Justin Brown (Bridge, 2008).
Together with violinist Ida Kavafian, violist Steven Tenenbom and cellist Peter Wiley he forms the quartet Opus One.
She is artistic director of the Vail Valley (Colorado), Ocean Reef Chamber Music (Florida) and Avila Chamber Music Celebration (Curacao) festivals.
"Is it true that Mozart composed the Requiem for his own death?"
By the middle of 1791, Mozart had hit rock bottom. Despite having a steady job of medium status as composer of the imperial and royal chamber of Leopold II (he was also assistant chapel master of St. Stephen's Cathedral, but was not paid for his work) and having received a commission for an opera (The Magic FluteEmanuel Schikaneder, director of the Viennese theater Widen), he was drowning in debts and was continually forced to ask for money, by means of painful letters, to his freemason friend Michaël Puchberg, who supported him less and less.
In addition, in early July, his wife Constanze returned to Vienna - she had been staying for several months in the Baden spas for health reasons - to have their sixth child, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Amadeus, who was born on the 28th of that month and, along with Karl (then six years old), was the only one to survive nursing.
One of the nights after Constanze's birth, a messenger, presumably with his face covered, handed Mozart an anonymous missive proposing to compose a mass for the dead at a price he set on condition that he never attempt to discover the identity of the commissioner. Given his desperate situation, Mozart accepted, but was unable to begin work immediately on the commission due to a new urgent commission:
The National Theater of Prague offered 200 ducats for composing music to the bookseller The Clemenza of Titus by Metastasius, on the occasion of the coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia, which was to take place on September 6. "Pale and saddened", in Constanze's words, Mozart traveled to Prague at the beginning of August and finished the opera on time, which was received coldly by an aristocracy with Italianate tastes led by Empress Maria Luisa of Bourbon.
Returning to Vienna in the second week of September, Mozart worked feverishly on The Magic Flutewhich he finished a day before its premiere on the 30th at the Schikaneder Theater; the opera, to the surprise of its author, was favorably received by the Viennese public, a success that was translated into several more performances, all equally celebrated.
In early October he completed his Clarinet Concerto KV 622 and only then did he turn to the composition of the Requiem.
Today it can be said with certainty that the messenger was an envoy of Count Franz von Walsegg zu Stuppach, an eccentric dilettante and amateur musician who was in the habit of commissioning works from great composers to pass them off as his own to the guests at his private parties. In the specific case of the Requiem, he requested it on the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of his wife, who died on January 14, 1791.
However, Mozart's illness (probably a rheumatic fever) worsened, and the certainty of having been poisoned became more powerful. In one of the pages of the diary of Mary Novello, Constanze's close friend and usual guest in the Mozart couple's house, we can read: "Every time Mozart faced a page of the Requiem, the delirium of having been poisoned increased, to the extent that he assured himself that it was clear to him that he had been supplied with acqua toffana (a poison of delayed effect); Constanze, deeply worried, longingly asked him to put that work aside and distract himself with something else".
The distraction came to him by way of his lodge mate Emanuel Schinkaneder (the same man who commissioned The Magic Flute), who asked him for music for a text of his own, Da Lob der Freundschafti (In Praise of Friendship), in which he exalts Masonic values. The result was a sparkling cantata written in three days, known as the Little Masonic Cantata; it is Mozart's last complete work.
By November 28, Mozart was certain that he would die without being able to finish the Requiem.: he was unable to write (his hands were swollen and he had a slight general paralysis, symptoms typical of a kidney ailment); so he called his pupil and friend Franz Xaver Sûssmayr (who had written the recitatives for the Clemency of Titus) and explained to him in detail how he was to complete the score.
Mozart died on December 5, 1791 at one o'clock in the morning at the age of 35 without any clergyman wanting to visit him. On December 6, after a brief religious service in the cathedral of St. I was, a third-class cortege went to the cemetery of Saint-Marx where they buried the body, shrouded and without coffin, in the common grave.
To fulfill Count Franz von Walsegg zu Stuppach's commission and collect the remainder of the stipulated sum, Constanze hurried Sûssmayer to complete the Requiem. Contrary to popular belief, the work was not played during Mozart's funeral; its first performance took place on January 2, 1793 at a private concert organized by Baron von Swieten. For his part, Count Franz von Walsegg zu Stuppach made a copy of the score and signed it as his own, conducting it himself in the parish of Wiener Neustad on December 14, 1793.
"...as death is the true end of our life, I feel, for some years now, so familiar with this true and excellent friend of man that its face is no longer frightening to me; not only that, but I find it very reassuring and consoling! And I thank God for having granted me the happiness of having the occasion to learn to know death as the key to our true happiness. I never go to bed without thinking that perhaps, young as I am, the next day I will no longer be here. However, none of those who know me will be able to say that I was grumpy or sad in my dealings. And for that happiness I give thanks and wish it with all my heart to each of my fellow men."
Fragment of a letter Mozart wrote to his father, Leopold, in early 1787.
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