Doug Barrick provided this information on Mozart's Requiem Mass to help us prepare for what we will experience; I believe the entry comes from translator Kurt Hermann Kretzschmar. Doug notes that the choir's May 1 performance falls on Holocaust Remembrance Day. The choir plans to have guest soloists and instrumentalists. Join the choir for practice Wednesdays, 2, 16 and 30 at 7:00 and every Wed. in April at 7:00.
"Among the numerous sacred compositions of superior quality which have become part of the universal literature in music, the “Requiem” by Mozart has a very special meaning. It is the most accomplished work of art among the Masses of this master and the only Requiem Mass of comparable beauty to give such balance to the contrasting text – the fear of death on the one hand and the hope for God’s grace on the other. The seriousness of dying is expressed everywhere, even in the unusual features of the instrumentation; the terror of the Last Judgment is felt keenly in this music, but the horror is kept at a mild level which takes on an ethereal quality in many places. Mozart has subordinated the subjective style of his music to strict liturgical forms, but the effect is still one of greatest simplicity.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, died 5 December 1791 in Vienna) wrote the “Requiem” – as the mysterious commission of a Count Walsegg of Stuppach who performed the work as his own composition at a memorial service for his late wife – during the year 1791 amidst premonitions of his own death. He did not live to finish the work. The Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, as well as the major portion of the Lacrymosa, were composed by Xaver Sűssmayr, a talented pupil of Mozart who was known for several operas he had written and who had a through knowledge of the intentions of the master, possibly even owning some sketches by Mozart which are now lost.
The first performance was arranged in 1792 by Baron van Swieten in Vienna, followed soon by performances in Munich and Prague. By the turn of the century, Mozart’s “Requiem” had become well know throughout Germany, rapidly reaching all music-loving countries, even overseas, and it remained for three decades the only Requiem Mass used on solemn occasions. In Paris, where Cherubini introduced it in 1804, it served as late as 1840 as the official Requiem Mass for the interment of Napoleon. Only in more recent years have masses by other composers taken their place next to the swansong of the Salzburg master."
"Among the numerous sacred compositions of superior quality which have become part of the universal literature in music, the “Requiem” by Mozart has a very special meaning. It is the most accomplished work of art among the Masses of this master and the only Requiem Mass of comparable beauty to give such balance to the contrasting text – the fear of death on the one hand and the hope for God’s grace on the other. The seriousness of dying is expressed everywhere, even in the unusual features of the instrumentation; the terror of the Last Judgment is felt keenly in this music, but the horror is kept at a mild level which takes on an ethereal quality in many places. Mozart has subordinated the subjective style of his music to strict liturgical forms, but the effect is still one of greatest simplicity.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (born 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, died 5 December 1791 in Vienna) wrote the “Requiem” – as the mysterious commission of a Count Walsegg of Stuppach who performed the work as his own composition at a memorial service for his late wife – during the year 1791 amidst premonitions of his own death. He did not live to finish the work. The Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, as well as the major portion of the Lacrymosa, were composed by Xaver Sűssmayr, a talented pupil of Mozart who was known for several operas he had written and who had a through knowledge of the intentions of the master, possibly even owning some sketches by Mozart which are now lost.
The first performance was arranged in 1792 by Baron van Swieten in Vienna, followed soon by performances in Munich and Prague. By the turn of the century, Mozart’s “Requiem” had become well know throughout Germany, rapidly reaching all music-loving countries, even overseas, and it remained for three decades the only Requiem Mass used on solemn occasions. In Paris, where Cherubini introduced it in 1804, it served as late as 1840 as the official Requiem Mass for the interment of Napoleon. Only in more recent years have masses by other composers taken their place next to the swansong of the Salzburg master."