Mozart: Valedictory Masterworks
Saturday, May 22, 1999 at 8:00 pm.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Requiem, K.V. 626
Ave verum corpus
with Luellen Best, soprano; Gloria Raymond, mezzo-soprano; Gerald Gray, tenor; Mark Risinger, bass-baritone; and orchestra.
Texts and translations
Ave verum corpus
Constanze Mozart traveled to Baden, a spa just outside Vienna, in the late Spring of 1791, the better to weather several days of her sixth pregnancy. She would ultimately give birth to Franz Xaver Wolfgang in July. Her husband, Wolfgang Amadè, made several trips to visit her there, and on one occasion found the opportunity to compose a little motet for choir and strings as a gift to the local choirmaster Anton Stoll, with whom he had become friendly.
That little motet of 46 bars and some three minutes duration has been described as virtually perfect in conception and execution, and it's difficult to disagree. The manuscript lacks any specific interpretive or dynamic instructions -- only the words sotto voce appear at the beginning of the score. From that terse, almost vexingly vague direction have sprung as many interpretations as conductors. But this is a work that survives almost any reasonable approach, so great is the depth of feeling it opens with its irresistible melody and glowing halo of strings and organ accompaniment. So strong is the affect of this short motet that many cite Ave Verum Corpus as perhaps their favorite Mozart choral work.
Written to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi, which H.C. Robbins Landon reminds us was of particular importance in Austria, Ave Verum Corpus was first performed at the parish church in Baden on Corpus Christi day in 1791. Mozart's autograph is dated 17 June 1791. The verse is from a 14th century handwritten document from Reichenau and in its middle sentence recounts one of the most painful and heartwrenching moments of Christ's crucifixion. The words form an ideal vehicle for the motet's calm repose and its quintessential Mozartean amalgam of grace with tears. Assertions of perfection aside, there are few works in Western music that accomplish so much in so modest a space. We rightly adopt and treasure Ave Verum as uniquely "ours," because it was written by whom it was, because we will always need to hear what it says to us and how it says it, and because we cherish how, in so short a span, it so lovingly leads us to a better place.
Requiem -- Brief History and Tonight's Performing Edition
The Requiem, Mozart's last work, left incomplete upon his death in the first hour of December 5, 1791, enjoys a popularity among musicians and listening connoisseurs which eclipses all other of the composer's choral works. The long-accepted theory of the Requiem's originally published content has it that much of what we hear today as Mozart's may not have been written by him but was in fact written by one of Mozart's students, Franz X. Süssmayr. Recent scholarship, though, is beginning to suggest some intriguing variations to this theory. H. C. Robbins Landon suggests in his admirable book 1791: Mozart's Last Year, as well as in the preface of his newly edited score of the Requiem that there is new evidence that much of what Süssmayr claimed as his own music probably found its origins in Mozart after all. As just one example, the theme of the Benedictus, which Süssmayr had claimed as his but which musicians have felt is simply of a quality beyond Süssmayr's imagination, has recently been discovered in a book of sketches belonging to Barbara Ployer, a pianist who had studied with Mozart.
And there are further surmises based upon Landon's and other Mozart musicologists' recent research. Based on newly unearthed evidence in the form of long-lost correspondence and hitherto-undiscovered sketches which have come to light within the last 15 or so years, the Requiem which we have been told for years was completed (solely) by Süssmayr and the missing portions of the work actually composed by him are likely closer to Mozart's unfinished intentions than previously thought. Further, the instrumentation of the Requiem was also worked on by other Mozart students and protégés, namely, Joseph Eybler and Franz Jakob Freystéädtler. Eybler's completions, in fact, are written on the same manuscript paper as Mozart's own notations. Landon feels strongly that the work of Eybler, in particular, is superior to that of Süssmayr. And, when completions of Mozart's score exist in versions by both Eybler and Süssmayr, Eybler should prevail in performance because of its more careful and Mozartean craftsmanship and clearer, less cumbersome orchestration.
A particularly evident moment of this is heard -- or, actually, not heard -- in the Rex Tremendae movement of the Sequence, where, in the familiar Süssmayr orchestration, loud three-part trombone chords are heard on the second strong beat of the first measure. Analysis of manuscript handwriting, ink color, and paper watermarks has suggested that these chords were not intended by Mozart. Eybler, in fact, does not score this and subsequent Süssmayr trombone chords. This a better musical and dramatic decision, too, in that it does not spoil the surprise and drama of the chorus's subsequent fortissimo entrance at the identical moment in measure three. The result is a sound and dramatic gesture truer to Mozart. This one moment in the score is but one example of many that illustrate the careful thought which Landon has given his edition.
Yet even in light of all the research and recent discoveries surrounding the Requiem, it's also true that there can never be a "definitive" version of the score, simply because the work was truly unfinished when Mozart died. All efforts to "complete" the work, whether by adding music or by changing instrumentation can be well-intentioned, high-minded, scholarly, even musical. But the fact remains that all but a few portions of the Requiem are pure, unadulterated Mozart. And if only that music is performed, we are left with only bits and pieces, not a "whole" work. This explains why, since the composer's death, so many attempts at a reasonable completion of the Requiem have been undertaken. Tonight's performance of Landon's edition of eminent scholarship and musical sensitivity can only be viewed as an honest attempt of giving listeners as much of a Mozart Requiem as possible, under the circumstances of the work's incomplete creation. What Landon's edition uniquely offers is, simply, music as close to Mozart's known intentions for his Requiem -- as best we can postulate -- as of what was known in 1991. With luck and faith, the work emerges with new-found clarity and impact, and the most Mozartean splendor as befits it.
Requiem -- A Personal Note
Any performance of the Mozart Requiem, as must now be clear after having read the above, raises many questions. Certain questions of history may never be answered, yet we know more now about this remarkable work than we did 15 years ago. Equally important questions must be addressed by any serious interpreter -- questions of tempo, color, pacing, orchestration. These issues apply when preparing any musical composition for performance. In the case of this work, however, the choices become more difficult. Here, in incomplete form, is the final work of the world's most cherished composer. How can one have the effrontery to offer it in one's own interpretation, when great music such as this has no possible "definitive" interpretation?
The Spectrum Singers and I have not taken this opportunity lightly. We recognize that to perform this work means we must assume a very serious responsibility. Our approach, therefore, is borne out of deep respect for the tenor and timbre of the music, and the circumstances under which it was written. We sing this work with deep respect, slowly when text and music seem to ask for it, never forgetting that this is, after all, a Mass for departed souls, on whom chorus and soloist entreat perpetual light to shine. Moments of radiant optimism do occasionally occur (Recordare, Offertorium, Sanctus, Benedictus and Osanna), and these moments enjoy appropriate tempi and colors. But the overall tone, in the majority, is one of deep sadness, with little opportunity for eventual salvation evinced.
It is not without reason, I believe, that certain final cadences in this work arrive without the third of the chord. Western musical convention wants chords to resolve, preferably to major. We feel good about major cadences. Minor cadences leave most listeners with a sense of relative sadness or melancholy, unfair as that may be. Think of the endings of Mozart's last two symphonies -- the dark g-minor #40 ends with a powerful minor cadence, the brilliant C-major #41 with an emphatic major. One loves both symphonies, but each work's ending leaves a compellingly different emotional sense of finality in its wake. But the Requiem's cadences at the end of the Kyrie and Communio fugues finish with open fifths. These cadences -- neither major or minor -- have the effect of leaving something of an open question at the last -- a question left unanswered. This is made even more telling by occurring after these texts: "Lord, have mercy upon us" and "Grant to them eternal rest, o Lord, and may perpetual light shine on them, with Thy saints, forever, because Thou art merciful." The power of this concept -- of leaving these entreaties musically unanswered -- is what, for me, finally decides what this work is about. Will the Lord have mercy upon us? Will there be eternal rest? Will light shine upon them? Art Thou merciful? These are profound questions for any faithful believer, and profoundly unsettling when left unanswered in one's final thoughts.
Mozart's music speaks directly and uniquely to each of its listeners. The music of the Requiem is compelling and serious. It asks many questions, but gives few answers. It leads us by the hand, as Landon puts it so well, where it wishes to go.
We cannot help but let it take us.
© 1999, John W. Ehrlich
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