“For one moment in the history of music all opposites were reconciled; all tensions resolved; that luminous moment was Mozart” (Phil Goulding)
“We cannot despair about mankind knowing that Mozart was a man” (Albert Einstein)
“I have always reckoned myself among the greatest admirers of Mozart, and shall remain so until my last breath” (Ludwig van Beethoven)
“If we cannot write with the beauty of Mozart, let us at least try to write with his purity” (Johannes Brahms)
“The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, in all centuries and in all the arts” (Richard Wagner)
“Mozart is the greatest composer of all. Beethoven created his music, but the music of Mozart is of such purity and beauty that one feels he merely found it – that it has always existed as part of the inner beauty of the universe waiting to be revealed” (Albert Einstein)
“Mozart’s joy is made of serenity, and a phrase of his music is like a calm thought; his simplicity is merely purity. It is a crystalline thing in which all the emotions play a role, but as if already celestially transposed. Moderation consists in feeling emotions as the angels do” (Andre Gide)
“Mozart’s music is the mysterious language of a distant spiritual kingdom, whose marvelous accents echo in our inner being and arouse a higher, intensive life” (E.T.A. Hoffmann)
“A phenomenon like Mozart remains an inexplicable thing” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
“Mozart has the classic purity of light and the red ocean; Beethoven the romantic grandeur which belongs to the storms of air and sea, and while the soul of Mozart seems to dwell on the ethereal piaks of Olympus, that of Beethoven climbs shuddering the storm-beaten sides of a Sinai. Blessed be they both! Each represents a moment of the ideal life, each does us good. Our love is due to both.” (Henri-Frédéric Amiel)
"Mozart is the musical Christ. Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music. I find consolation and rest in Mozart's music, wherein he gives expression to that joy of life which was part of his sane and wholesome temperament" (Pyotr Ilyici Tchaikovsky)
"A light, bright, fine day this will remain throughout my whole life. As from afar, the magic notes of Mozart's music still gently haunt me. A world that has produced a Mozart is a world worth saving. What a picture of a better world you have given us, Mozart!" (Franz Schubert)
Mozart in Lacrimosa... On the steps of air that reach to a heavenly height, the German vocalizations of Divinity... (Claudiu Iordache)
"The Mozartian legacy, in brief, is as good an excuse for mankind's existence as we shall ever encounter and is perhaps, after all, a still small hope for our ultimate survival." (H.C. Robbins Landon)
“Ten million views. The human race is slowly making me believe in them again...” (online comment on Mozart’s Symphony 40 in G minor)
... Mozart had simply written down music already finished in his head. And music finished as no music has ever finished. Displace one note and there would be diminishment. Displace one phrase and the structure would fall. I was staring through the cage of those meticulous ink strokes at an absolute beauty… (Peter Shaffer - 'Amadeus')
"Whenever I despair about the human race I listen to music like this and it gives me hope. No species that can produce Mozart can be all bad." (online comment on Mozart's 'Le Nozze di Figaro')
“There are three things in the world I love most: the sea, Hamlet and Don Giovanni” (Gustave Flaubert)
"Mozart’s music is on the one hand so accessible, so beautiful and so apparently simple that it can be grasped and enjoyed on its first hearing. But at the same time it is so deep, so profound, so perfect that one can spend a lifetime in it and continue to be fascinated with it, even if it’s the hundreth time you’ve performed it…" (James Conlon)
"Mozart has reached the boundary gate of music and leaped over it, leaving behind the old masters and moderns, and posterity itself" (A. Hyatt King)
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– în acest moment am primit o veste care mă întristează foarte mult – cu atât mai mult cu cât din ultima dumitale scrisoare am putut să presupun că te simți, slavă Domnului, foarte bine; – Dar acum aflu că ești cu adevărat bolnav! nu trebuie să-ți mai spun cât de mult tânjesc să primesc o veste consolatoare din partea dumitale; și o sper cu putere – deși mi-am făcut obiceiul să-mi imaginez întotdeauna și în toate privințele tot ceea ce poate fi mai rău – din moment ce moartea (când o luăm în considerare îndeaproape) este adevăratul scop al vieții noastre, mie de câțiva ani într-atât mi-a devenit de cunoscut acest sincer și foarte bun prieten al oamenilor, încât chipul lui nu mai are nimic înfricoșător pentru mine, ci mai degrabă îmi aduce liniște și consolare! și îi mulțumesc dumnezeului meu că mi-a acordat prilejul (dumneata știi ce vreau să spun) de a înțelege că moartea este cheia care deschide ușa spre adevărata noastră fericire. – nu mă culc niciodată în patul meu fără a cugeta că aș putea (oricât de tânăr sunt) să nu mai fiu a doua zi – și nu există nici un om dintre cei ce mă cunosc care să poată spune că aș fi posac sau trist în relațiile mele – și pentru această binecuvântare îi mulțumesc zilnic Creatorului meu și o doresc din inimă fiecărui seamăn al meu…”
Viena, 4 aprilie 1787
“Mon tres cher père!
– diesen augenblick höre ich eine Nachricht, die mich sehr niederschlägt – um so mehr als ich aus ihrem lezten vermuthen konnte, daß sie sich gottlob recht wohl befinden; – Nun höre aber daß sie wirklich krank seÿen! wie sehnlich ich einer Tröstenden Nachricht von ihnen selbst entgegen sehe, brauche ich ihnen doch wohl nicht zu sagen; und ich hoffe es auch gewis – obwohlen ich es mir zur gewohnheit gemacht habe mir immer in allen Dingen das schlimste vorzustellen – da der Tod |: genau zu nemen : | der wahre Endzweck unsers Lebens ist, so habe ich mich seit ein Paar Jahren mit diesem wahren, besten Freunde des Menschen so bekannt gemacht, daß sein Bild nicht allein nichts schreckendes mehr für mich hat, sondern recht viel beruhigendes und tröstendes! und ich danke meinem gott, daß er mir das glück gegönnt hat mir die gelegenheit |: sie verstehen mich : | zu verschaffen, ihn als den schlüssel zu unserer wahren Glückseligkeit kennen zu lernen. – ich lege mich nie zu bette ohne zu bedenken, daß ich vielleicht |: so Jung als ich bin : | den andern Tag nicht mehr seÿn werde – und es wird doch kein Mensch von allen die mich kennen sagn können daß ich im Umgange mürrisch oder traurig wäre – und für diese glückseeligkeit danke ich alle Tage meinem Schöpfer u wünsche sie vom Herzen Jedem meiner Mitmenschen…”
Wien 4. April 1787
“Dearest father!
This very moment I have received some news which greatly distresses me – the more so as I gathered from your last letter that, thank God, you were very well; – But now I hear that you are really ill! I hardly need to tell you how eagerly I look forward to some reassuring news from you; and I hope for it – although I have now made a habit of being prepared for the worst in all affairs of life – as death (when we come to consider it closely) is the true goal of our existence, I have during the last few years come so know so well this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is rather very calming and consoling! and I thank my God for granting me the opportunity (you know what I mean) of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness. – I never lie down at night without reflecting that (young as I am) I may not live to see another day – and there is no one of those who know me who could say that in company I am sullen or sad – and for this blessing I thank my Creator every day and wish it from my heart to each one of my fellow men…”
Vienna, 4 April 1787
Source of German transcription: Ludwig Nohl Source of English translation: Emily Anderson (slightly modified)
Source of image of excerpts from Mozart’s letter: The Berlin Staatsbibliothek.
Many thanks to Dr Michael Lorenz for the information that the digitized document is actually a copy dating from around 1850, in the handwriting of Ludwig von Köchel!
“S-a spus de multe ori că miracolul lui Mozart ca muzician constă în această perfecțiune a formei pe care n-o găsești dacă aspiri la ea, dacă lași să se vadă efortul, chiar eroic, căutarea, chiar nobilă; da, Mozart este un moștenitor și cu el se desăvârșește o civilizație a muzicii, ale cărei rezultate savante și artificii sfinte el le rezumă cu o naivitate intactă și o simplitate divină; da, Mozart poartă în el, înnăscut, geniul experienței; prin natură, întreaga cultură; geniul său îl condamnă la perfecțiune: și se știe cum ne-o dă, supraabundent. Unui om aflat din punct de vedere fizic în pragul prăbușirii, gata să se dezintegreze, o ultimă stagiune îi impune efortul incredibil a două opere, fiecare epuizând inventivitatea, prospețimea ideilor creatorului său; și totuși, în acest timp, în subteran, un întreg Recviem își sapă calea, conducând la alte nuanțe, la un alt ton. Acest exces de sarcini, la fel de urgente, la fel de pasionante, nu apasă asupra lui Mozart decât pentru a-l obliga în sfârșit să lase ceva neterminat, pentru a-i converti viziunea la deschidere. Până acum, cu mici excepții în Don Giovanni, Mozart nu a locuit decât în universul închis și binecuvântat al formelor, și doar melancolia muzicii sale, ea însăși acoperită cu vălul Maiei și ademenindu-ne cu frumusețea sa, dezvăluie strigătul sufletului. Dar iată că vălul se rupe. Titus și Flautul sunt creații ale secolului lor, ale lumii noastre, terminate, închise; dacă ceva evocă aici o lume de dincolo, nu e nici virtutea sublimă a unui suveran, cu atât mai puțin înțelepciunea preoților sau riturile lor; toate acestea mai degrabă ar reconforta și împăca – dar numai durerea. În vocea Vitelliei, a Paminei, durerea sfâșie vălul. Tot ce e strigăt al inimii la Mozart, fie că-l încredințează unui clarinet, unei viole sau unei voci de femeie, doar asta deschide către o altă lume și o reflectă deja cu această blândețe excesivă, care disperă și totodată consolează. Înainte de Recviem însă, nu există la Mozart muzică din altă lume, care să te smulgă din lumea aceasta. Neterminarea Recviemului nu înseamnă că moartea i-a smuls pana lui Mozart din mână înainte de a scrie muzica pentru cor ca să-l încheie; înseamnă că Mozart, cu pana în mână, pătrunde în sfârșit în propria lume de dincolo. Copil fiind, a văzut picturile de pe tavanul Capelei Sixtine; imaginea lor pune din nou stăpânire pe el, eclipsează, aneantizează aceste frumoase spații albe și aurii ale barocului pe unde trec atât de frumoși îngeri manieriști, purtători ai vreunei vești teribile. Până acum Mozart n-a scris decât muzică, dar muzică perfectă. Iată sunetul instantaneu: un sunet pur, erupție a materiei, ca un scandal. Tuba mirum spargens sonum. Sunetul acestei tube nu trezește nici un fel de admirație, cum s-ar traduce prost din latină; el uimește și dezrădăcinează, el expatriază; credeam că locuim în peisajul nostru uman, iată exodul. Astfel și culoarea, într-un tablou, pură erupție și prezență, trimite în zădărnicie tot ce se credea formă. În fața unui asemenea sunet, vocile noastre își inventează o declamație înfricoșată, haotică, pe care Mozart nu ne-a făcut niciodată s-o ascultăm. Aici Mozart intră în celălalt secol al său și ne lasă să înțelegem cine ar fi fost dacă s-ar fi născut în vremea și în spațiul lui Beethoven, în loc să se lupte de unul singur pentru ca apariția celor ca Beethoven să fie posibilă. O frescă prinde viață, prezențe redutabile își găsesc relieful, gestul. Mozart locuiește în ceea ce Kant al Criticii facultății de judecare, contemporanul său, numea peisajul Frumosului, unde totul e reconciliere, integrare, acord al universului cu fiecare; iată-l transpus în Sublim; mai mult cer înstelat ca să ne spună și norma și forma; mai mult din numărul de aur pentru ca cel mai adevărat să fie în același timp și cel mai frumos. Mozart nu intră în nedesăvârșit, ci în nedesăvârșibil; altă lume pentru altă artă; Deschisul. Recviemul este pragul unei cu totul alte inițieri decât aceea, foarte comună, care dintr-un ucenic face un maestru. Rilke a spus-o: “Cumplit e orișice înger.” Acestui mesager pe care-l evocă legenda trebuie să i se redea numele, etimologic și totodată rilkian: Îngerul.
Recviemul nu se termină, iar Mozart se împlinește. Astfel, și asta purta în el: o izbândă a finisării și izbânda contrară; omul care se simte în largul său în trestia lui finită și omul demn în același timp de Dumnezeu, cum spune Pascal, sau demn de infinit, cum arată Mozart. Ritmul nebunesc, halucinant din Dies irae nu ar putea fi decât al lui Mozart, dar nu seamănă cu nimic din ce-a făcut Mozart, deși spaimele din Idomeneo și angoasele din Don Giovanni au pregătit pentru asta; și clarinete, oboaie și chiar corni, Mozart ni le-a făcut de neuitat în aceste aparteuri sau aceste dialoguri care sunt întreaga viață a concertelor sale. Dar acest sunet brusc, pur și care umple spațiul, ne trimite în același timp la elementar și la final, și, pentru a ne apăra de acest lucru, recurgerea la forme nu înseamnă nimic. Nu știu dacă marea suferință ne face mai buni, spune Nietzsche, dar sunt sigur că ne face mai profunzi. Chiar în clipa când se aude acest sunet care e stupoare (și chiar Mozartea, de îndată, stupebit), iată-l pe Mozart fără moștenire; și muzica a sfârșit-o cu Vechiul său Regim; un nou testament nu se scrie, iar cel vechi e perimat; există Arcadii unde nu vom mai dormi. Ce contează că Mozart nu a terminat? Cu totul altceva îi spune, ne spune Recviemul lui: Ascultați-mă altfel; folosiți acele urechi pe care le-a deschis în voi acest sunet teribil; și-l veți auzi cu totul altfel chiar și pe Mozart cel considerat cunoscut și desăvârșit; aceeași lume de dincolo, ascultați-o în prezent în Cosi fan tutte și adierile sale, în cvintete; acest sunet teribil, învățați să ascultați cât a costat ca să faci din el o melodie și o vrajă care ne surâd în Contesă, în Cherubino; ascultați-o pe Barbarina pe înserate, care n-a făcut decât să piardă un ac și al cărei suflet plânge. Mi-am pus jos pana, dar mi-am lansat săgeata și mă aveți pentru totdeauna în inimă, statornic și amical, Înger eu însumi.
Miracolul lui Mozart: muzica sa se topește pur și simplu în sufletele noastre, dar și în simțurile noastre, mai întâi; în mod imperceptibil sensibilă (și chiar senzuală) și spirituală; astfel ne amintim că de la simțuri la suflet drumul nu e așa de lung, nici interdicția atât de severă. Doar Mozart, de la greci încoace, ne spune: Simțurile nu-ți sunt blestemate, sufletul nu ți se află în exil. Voce pentru sufletul cel mai rezervat, Mozart e înainte de orice binecuvântare, acest frison resimțit pe piele; concret și celest; bun-venit celui sociabil ca și celui solitar; sociabil pentru cel solitar. O, Înger!
Averi i-au alunecat printre degete, funcțiile pe care le merită de o sută de ori ajung la alții – astfel el rămâne ca și noi: un om strâmtorat. Ni-l imaginăm pe Mozart înstărit? Căpătuit? Proprietar? Sau încărcat de ani și de onoruri și un tânăr spunându-i: tată, cum i-a spus el lui Haydn. El n-a venit pe lume ca să se îmbogățească pe sine, ci pe noi. Dacă se supără, întrerupându-se din cântat pentru că nimeni nu-l ascultă, e din cauză că nu trebuie risipită apa pură într-o lume care piere de sete. El nu este acest tânăr Iosif pe care Thomas Mann ni-l arată sub clar de lună felicitându-se pentru alegerea sa. Din copilărie se pregătește să fie Iosif, tatăl adoptiv, cel care va avea grijă de dezmoșteniții ce vor veni și acumulează, timp de șapte ani bogați, o adevărată comoară muzicală.
N-a trebuit decât să cânte, ne spune Richard Strauss, iar sufletul omenesc, al cărui mister îl duce la disperare pe filozof, s-a arătat. Ideea de sunet a devenit sunet, ideea de perfecțiune, perfecțiune. Mozart a venit, iar noi știm ce este sufletul. Aflat departe din străfundul timpurilor, acesta a reușit aspirația milenară de a fi propriu-i trup. Favoare acordată nouă: această mediere cerească, pentru a se împlini, a ales muzica! Un sculptor ar fi transpus-o în marmură; am fi crezut în veșnicia ei, în loc să învățăm din surâsul frumos al muzicii, în acea clipă, să dorim veșnicia pe care o reflectă. Astfel supranaturalul a încercat naturalul, pentru a putea locui printre noi. Mozart a parcurs drumul și ne lasă muzica.”
“Actele de divorț dintre lume și geniu au fost depuse în groapa comună a cimitirului din Viena unde, spre gloria ei, lumea
l-a aruncat pe Mozart
sub varul septic
al uitării din urmă.
Și de atunci scena
se tot repetă.
Scriind pentru lume a sfârșit prin a scrie pentru îngeri. Ca să înspăimânți mediocritatea e destul să rostești: “Mozart!”
Între dionisiac și apolinic, Flautul și Recviemul, ultimul fruct depus în coșul culegătorului. Viața alege dintotdeauna parfumul opusului ei. Raiul îndoliat la care bate Mozart tânăr ținând în mâna sa de dantele tremurânde ultima Operă.
A sosit noaptea, Mozart…”
Claudiu Iordache Volumul de poezie “Nervurile transparenței”, 2012
Lacrimosa dies illa
Qua resurget ex favilla
Judicandus homo reus.
Huic ergo parce, Deus:
Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem.
Amen.
“the 26th. A Song – Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte” It is Mozart’s entry in his hand-written Catalogue of Works, on a 26th of May 1787.
On the score, in his handwriting: “The 26th of May 1787 Landstrasse”, on the top left-hand corner of the first page – in the top right-hand corner he signed with “W.A. Mozart / in Herr Gottfried von Jacquin’s room”.
Happiness is… to hear your own mezzo voice singing ‘Als Luise’ in the Tanzmeistersaal, on a 27 January 2016… ❤
Erzeugt von heisser Phantasie…
Erzeugt von heißer Phantasie, In einer schwärmerischen Stunde Zur Welt gebrachte! Geht zu Grunde! Ihr Kinder der Melancholie!
Ihr danket Flammen euer Sein, Ich geb’ euch nun den Flammen wieder, Und all’ die schwärmerischen Lieder; Denn ach! – er sang nicht mir allein.
Ihr brennet nun, und bald, ihr Lieben, Ist keine Spur von euch mehr hier: Doch ach! der Mann, der euch geschrieben, Brennt lange noch vielleicht in mir.
(Gabriele von Baumberg)
Conceived of fervent fantasy, Brought into the world in an hour of rapture! Perish! You, children of melancholy!
You owe to passion’s flames your being: To the flames I now return you with all the songs of ecstasy, for alas! not to me alone he sang them.
You burn now, and soon, my loves, no trace of you will remain: but alas! the man who wrote you may long still burn within me.
“Mozart allowed himself to be inspired by poems he came across by chance or to which friends drew his attention or which seemed appropriate for a particular occasion. Thje text of the song ‘Als Luise die Briefe ihres ungetreuen Liebhabers verbrannte’ beginning with the words ‘Erzeugt von heisser Phantasie’ is by Gabriele von Baumberg (1766-1839). who was regarded as the ‘Sappho of Vienna’ and as the most importaant Austrian poetess of her time. She frequented the circle surrounding the author Karoline Pichler (1769-1843) who also knew Jacquin and Mozart. Pichler refers to Baumberg’s poems as a ‘beautiful legacy left to her fatherland and one would only wish that they were better known and more vivid in the memory of today’s world, as they deserve.’ Gabriele von Baumberg’s poetry, which was published in Blumauer-Ratschky’s ‘Almanac of the Muses’ as early as 1786, has, in Mozart’s setting, achieved immortality.”
Johanna Senigl, Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg (translated by Elizabeth Mortimer) – W.A. MOZART ‘Als Luise’, Faksimile mit Edition
A Piano concerto. Accompaniment: 2 violins, 2 violas, 1 flute, 2 oboes. 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 clarinets, timpani and bass.”
It is the entry in Mozart’s hand-written catalogue of works, anouncing the splendid Piano Concerto in C Major, no 21, K.467!
On the 10th of March 1785, less than one month after the premiere of the stormy, moving, dramatic D minor, Mozart was presenting another piano concerto to the Viennese audience: calm, brilliant, full of light and joy, majestic in its great beauty!
As with the Piano Concerto in D minor, the C Major Piano Concerto was composed for the series of Lenten subscription concerts that Mozart was giving in 1785. Leopold Mozart, who had come to visit his son just in time to witness the premiere of Mozart’s sublime D minor Piano Concerto, would write to Nannerl: “We never get to bed before one o’clock and I never get up before nine. We lunch at two or half past. The weather is terrible. Every day there are concerts; and the whole time is given up to teaching music, composing and so forth. I feel rather out of it. If only all the concerts were over! It is impossible for me to describe the rush and bustle. Since my arrival your brother’s fortepiano has been taken at least a dozen times to the theater or to some other house…” Father and son went out together, to eat of attend musical or social events, or received friends in Mozart’s apartment, where they would spend hours making music; in the same time the composer went on with the lessons with his pupils, took part in various public and private concerts and, above all, composed!
Mozart entered the C Major Piano Concerto in his catalogue on 9 March 1785 (although on the autograph score he writes “in February 1785” – “Concerto di Wolfgango Amadeo Mozart, nel Febraio 1785”), and premiered it on 10 March 1785 at the Burgtheater – The National Court Theater, in a concert for his own benefit.
A handbill for the concert announced that it would include “a new, just finished Fortepiano Concerto”, in addition to Mozart playing improvisations employing “an especially large Fortepiano pedal”.
“On Thursday, March 10, 1785, Kapellmeister Mozart will have the honor of giving in the Imperial and Royal Court Theater a Grand Musical Concert for his own benefit including not only a new, just finished fortepiano concerto to be played by him, but also an especially large fortepiano pedale in improvising will be used. The remaining pieces will be announced by a large poster on the day of the concert.”
A letter from Johann Samuel Liedemann, a merchant in Vienna, from 18 February 1785, states that “…the Fortepiano maker Walther had augmented his Fortepiano with a Pedal. Mozart played the instrument and it produced a wonderful effect” (he is referring to the premiere of the D minor Piano Concerto of 11 February 1785). Leopold’s letter to Nannerl and the announcement for the Burgtheater concert of March 10 indicate Mozart also played the C Major Piano Concerto on a piano which had a special pedal attachment: “He has had a large fortepiano pedal made, which stands under the instrument and is about two feet longer and extremely heavy”. The success of the concert and the receipts of 559 florins were reported by Leopold with satisfaction and pride to his daughter, in the letter of 12 March 1785.
“This concerto followed the last at four weeks interval. Between the two there is absolute contrast. On one hand, passion, conflict, storm of the spirit; on the other, calm and majesty. We have already noted how, more than once, Mozart produces, one after the other, two first-rate works of highly contrasted inspiration: the autumn before, with the concerto in B flat, K.456, and the sonata in C minor; in 1786, with the concertos in A and C minor; and again in 1787 and 1788 with the quintets and symphonies in G minor and C. We said that it was but one manifestation of his very mobile nature, ready to leap without transition from one aspect of reality to another, from one mood to its opposite. Sometimes the sorrowful work precedes the joyful one; sometimes the contrary. In February and March, 1785, the order is optimistic: the song of peace comes after the tempest; the luminous C major exorcises the sombre and daimonisch D minor. Nevertheless, the concerto in C is not a blithe work; it is powerful and motionless rather than joyful, and in its immobility we recognize, albeit frozen, the billows of the D minor. (Cuthbert Girdlestone)
The C Major’s first movement, the ‘Allegro’, is (not in the autograph but in all editions), “Maestoso” in its design and essence! The second movement, ‘Andante’, breathtakingly beautiful! The last movement, ‘Allegro vivace assai’, light, airy, wonderful! On the 10th of March, 1785, at the Burgtheater, could this have been the sound that the musicians and audience delighted in?
“The first movement is headed maestoso, a mark which should be observed and not replaced in practice by brillante, as is done by some musicians who consider they know what Mozart wanted better than Mozart himself. But the first subject, as we hear it in the first eleven bars, belies this indication. It is a march like so many first subjects in concertos of the period, but a tiptoed march, in stocking feet, and even when woodwind, brass and drums interrupt the stringgs, it does not rise above piano. It is almost a comedy motif and we should not be surprised to see Leporello emerge from it. But this impression is soon rectified. Conforming to the plan of the quiet beginning followed by a forte, Mozart repeats the theme with all the resources of his orchestra, modulates at once with unusual freedom and, passing quickly through A minor and C minor, settles a while in G major on a tonic pedal. (…) After giving out these two themes, it would seem that the tutti had but to conclude and admit the solo. But this concerto does not act like its predecessors. Instead of a closing figure, the march begins again, first in imitations in the strings, piano, then, when all the orchestra has joined in, forte, and the music launches forth into a working-out whose progress, led with a steady step and insistent in its regularity, reminds us of the straining and pitiless vigour of the D minor. There is no modulating; everything comes down, in the last resort, to rises and falls of one octave, repeated several times, without haste, now with the whole orchestra, now antiphonally, with strings and woodwind. Such calm perseverance is irresistible; its strength is in its mass, not in its fire or speed (on condition, once again, that the movement is taken at a moderate speed and even heavily, maestoso, and not brillante. Played swiftly and lightly, this passage becomes a kind of breathless race that keeps on coming back to its starting-point, which is nonsense); the music looks neither right nor left; its progress is due to singleness of will. No passage demonstrates better than this both the kinship and the ontrast which unite and separate the twin concertos; in one, vehemence and wrath; in the other, self-assurance; in both, a will firm and inexorable.” (Cuthbert Girdlestone)
“In neither of Mozart’s earlier works do we find the contrapuntal potential of the opening so fully realized on the larger structural level as it is in K.567, where various polyphonic settings of the opening theme produce some of the main structural blocks of the ritornello. (…) Charles Rosen has described K.467 as “Mozart’s first true essay in orchestral grandeur” and has commented on the block-like nature of its construction…”
And the ‘Andante’ that follows… Mozart’s fragile, beautiful soul, transfigured into Music!
“The world of the andante is that of the “dream” andantes, a family which comprises some of Mozart’s most beautiful slow movements in earlier years and in the long successions of which it is the last; but its form is unique. It is a piano cantilena preceded by a tutti prelude and sumptuously sustained and adorned by the murmur of the strings and the multi-coloured raiment of the wind. The tune winds from key to key, smooth and closely blended; it passes through various moods, some dreamy, some full of anguish, some serene, but the themes hardly stand out; it is a river, moving slowly but unceasingly, and only from time to time does an eddy in the current announce a freshy subject. Yet it is not a fantasia. There is directions and progress in its emotion and its form. The stream advances, turns back, passes on again, and though its structure be free, it is never loose. (…) And all the time it never stops singing; one feels that its chief contribution here is its tone colour, the pale, delicate colour of the 1780 piano, whose beauty Mozart never set forth more felicitously than in this nocturne. We say, nocturne, and in truth the rapprochement with Chopin can hardly be avoided. he hazy atmosphere of the mutes, the quivering calm of the ceaseless triplets, the slow, sustained song of the piano—more than all this, the veiled and sorrowfully passionate soul which this music expresses with such immediacy, do we not find them in the work of Chopin and especially in those nocturnes of which the “dream” of Mozart’s reminds us? This Andante, so placid at first hearing, betrays on further acquaintance an agitated mood. Its perpetual instability, to which its constant modulating and its unsatisfied quest for new places bears witness; its morbid disquiet, thinly concealed now and again under an appearance of calm, breaking forth with heart-rending pathos in the chromaticisms and the discreet yet pungent hues of ex.270 are unquestionably fundamental elements of Mozart’s nature, but they are elements which he shares with Chopin.” (Cuthbert Girdlestone)
To our ears, to our heart, the ‘Andante’ of Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto no 21 is perfect beauty as it is: a ‘simple’ melody that moves us to tears whenever we listen to it. We don’t even want to imagine it changed in any way – and the only way in which we would probably accept it changed would be to listen to Mozart himself playing it. Philipp Karl, an amateur-musician who had heard Mozart perform two of his piano concertos in Frankurt, in October 1790, later reported that when Mozart played the slow movements of his piano concertos he embellished them “tenderly and tastefully once one way, once differently, following the momentary inspiration of his genius”. In 1803 Phillip Karl published embellished versions of six Mozart piano concerto slow movements (K.467, K.482, K.488, K.491, K.503 and K.595), presumably inspired by his contact with Mozart, but not imitative of the composer’s own improvisations.”
“The andante occupies a world apart, a sonic dream world evoked by the magical effect of muted and pizzicato strings. It offers moments of sublime beauty and ends in a state of bliss, but its surface serenity cannot conceal the turmoil that lies beneath. At every turn there is a poignant reminder that happiness is transient, its promise easily revoked. And the escape to a dream world is consummated only in the imagination.” (David Grayson)
How might that evening of 10 March 1785 have looked like? Here’s what David Grayson tells us in his book “Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21”:
“Iconographic evidence suggests that in “halls” like the Mehlgrube the players would probably have occupied a low platform situated not at the end of the room, but against one of the long walls. The seating plan for K.466 would probably have been similar to the one recommended in 1802 by the piano-maker and Mozart pupil Nannette Stein Streicher:
“In performing concertos, especially Mozart’s, one should move the fortepiano several feet nearer (the audience) than the orchestra is. Directly behind the piano leave just the violins. The bass-line and wind instruments should be further back, the latter more than the former.”
Adalbert Gyrowetz, one of whose symphonies was programmed in Mozart’s Mehlgrube series, noted in his presumed autobiography that Mozart had hired a “full theater orchestra” for these concerts. This was most likely the orchestra of the Burgtheater, where, four days later, on 15 February 1785, Mozart again played the D-minor Piano Concerto, in a concert given by the singer Elisabeth Distler.
The Burgtheater, representing the third category of concert venue, was also the site of the premiere of the Piano Concerto in C, K.467, less than a month later, on 10 March 1785. Located on the Michaelerplatz, the Burgtheater was built in 1741 and renovated numerous times before its closing in 1888. Plans reflecting the state of the building during the 1780s show an oval-shaped house, with seating on the floor divided into two sections, ostensibly according to the social rank of the spectators: the Noble Parquet in front, and behind it the slightly elevated Second Parquet, with rows of benches and standing rooms at the rear. (Social segregation was not complete, however, as individuals connected to the theater, including composers and performers, could obtain passes granting admission to the NobleParquet.) Four balconies surrounded the floor. The lower two held the boxes rented on an annual basis by the nobility, plus, in the first tier, one box overlooking the stage, reserved for the director, and three “Imperial loges” (one in the center and two on the right) overlooking the orchestra, which occupied the floor at the front of the stage. The upper two balconies were galleries with benches and standing room. When jam-packed, the Burgtheater may have accomodated as many as 1800 spectators, but most estimates of the audience capacity are much lower, ranging from around 1000 to 1350.
According to a Vienna theater almanac of 1782, the Burgtheater orchestra comprised 35 players: six first and six second violins, four violas, three cellos, three basses, pairs of flutes, oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns and trumpets, and one timpanist. Assuming that these figures are also reliable for 1785, that the full theater orchestra participated in Mozart’s concerts in both the Burgtheater and the Mehlgrube, and that the entire ensemble was used for the concerto accompaniments, we can conclude that the orchestra for the first performances of K.466 and 467 consisted of around 32 players (one of the flutes and the two clarinets not being needed). (…)
Richard Maunder has speculated that, when Mozart performed his piano concertos in the theater, the orchestra may hav been in the pit, while he alone occupied the stage. Putting the soloist in this privileged position, Maunder reasoned, would have helped solve potential balance problems between the fortepiano and the orchestra, whose players would have been seated facing the stage, with their backs to the audience. Such a “theatrical staging” of the concerto moreover made manifest the genre’s affinity with the operatic aria. Daniel Heartz, however, has offered evidence that it was customary for Lenten concert and oratorio performances at the Burgtheater to follow the Italian practice and have all of the musicians on stage: the orchestra, soloists and chorus. He speculated, though, that the arrangement described by maunder might have been a practical necessity at other times of year, when theater rehearsals and stage sets might have made it difficult to rearrange the stage for an orchestra. Mary Sue Morrow has challenged this reasoning, arguing that rehearsals were often held elsewhere and that the theater’s repertory system would have required that the sets be struck after each performance anyway. Maunder’s theory seems unlikely from a purely logistical point of view, given th mixed nature of Mozart’s typical concert programs. For example, his concert of 23 march 1782 at the Burgtheater began and ended with movements of the “Haffner” Symphony, with arias, concertos, concertante movements, and solo piano works interspersed in between. It would have seeed odd for the orchestra to start the program on stage, then repair to the pit, only to re-ascend at the end of the concert for the “haffner” finale. Even odder would have been for the orchestra to remain in the pit throughout, leaving the audience to face an empty stage at the start and conclusion of the evening. For performances of Mozart’s concertos in the theater, then, we may imagine all of the performers on stage, arranged according to the seating plan recommended above by nannette Stein Stricher.” (David Grayson – Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 20 and 21 – “Performance practice issues”)
A look at the Burgtheater through time – that Burgtheater where Mozart premiered his piano concertos and operas:
In 1888 the “old” Burgtheater was demolished, and a new building with the same name was built on the Ringstrasse: the new Burgtheater. The theater where Mozart premiered his masterpieces had to make space for… space… Almost all the places where he had lived and composed were torn down without the smallest thought that those were not just buildings, they were places of history which should have been preserved with love and respect. Instead of them we now have super-stores, or… more space…
other images from the internet, assumed to be in the public domain.
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“Each year around the time of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart‘s birth in January, the Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg hosts the Mozart Week with opera performances and orchestral, chamber, and soloist concerts. World-renowned Mozart interpreters, orchestras, and ensembles are responsible for the unparalleled reputation of this unique event. This week of concerts, which was first held in 1956, invites visitors from around the world to rediscover Mozart’s works from ever-changing perspectives and to hear them afresh.”
Mozarts Geburtshaus, the house in which Mozart was born on 27 January 1756, on Getreidegasse, is now one of the most frequently visited museums in the world. The exhibition, which spreads over three floors, carries the visitors into Wolfgang’s world, telling when he began to make music, who his friends and patrons were, how the relationship with his family looked like, how strong was his passion for the opera… Here can be seen portraits, original manuscripts and documents, as well as personal objects and musical instruments on which he has played: his childhood violin and the clavichord on which he composed a few of his wonderful works.
In Makartplatz there is Mozarts Wohnhaus, the residence where Mozart lived between 1773 and 1781 (the year when he left for Vienna). The building was severely damaged in the Second World War’s bombings, but it was faithfully reconstructed and today hosts the second important Mozart museum in Salzburg.
The fascinating history of how Mozart Residence was saved and reconstructed can be read on the page of The Mozarteum Foundation, in the anniversary year 2016 (20 years since the official opening of the rebuilt Mozart Residence).
In the spacious rooms visitors can see portraits and original documents, manuscripts of Mozart’s works from the Salzburg years, Wolfgang’s original fortepiano, as well as the famous Family Portrait in the Master’s Dance Hall (Tanzmeistersaal).
On 27 January 2016, the Tanzmeistersaal will host a wonderful moment of music: Andreas Staier and Alexander Melnikov will play Mozart’s fortepiano, and Nicolas Altstaedt will play the violoncello. Then, in the evening, Mozart’s Birthday will be celebrated outside Mozart’s Geburtshaus, with mulled wine and cake and musical interludes by Salzburg Superar Choir, at 8 p.m., the time of Mozart’s birth!
The entire programme of the Mozart Week 2016 is beautiful, with concerts taking place in the Grosser Saal Mozarteum, Grosses Festspielhaus, Wiener Saal Mozarteum, Universitaet Mozarteum, Mozart-Wohnung.
Salzburg is a city of Music: during the year extraordinary performances take place in churches, in palaces, in concert halls… Salzburger Schlosskonzerte is one of the biggest musical events in the world: the concerts take place in the marble hall of the Mirabell Palace, there where, in another time, young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played himself!
On Mozart Week, or whenever you are in Salzburg, give yourself the joy of discovering the beauties of a city whose cultural, historical and memorial values have always been respected by its rulers and inhabitants!
I cannot possibly write much at the moment, because we’ve just come back from Baroness Waldstätten, and I have to change from head to toe, for I am invited to a private concert at the residence of Herr Court Councilor Spellmann. – We both thank you for your New Year’s wishes and acknowledge freely that we are as dumb as oxen because we completely forgot our own duty of sending wishes to you – so we are sending you our wishes belatedly and won’t even send them as New Year’s Wishes but just as the everyday wishes we always have for you – and we’ll leave it at that. – About my moral commitment, yes, that’s quite correct; – the word flowed from my pen not entirely without my intention – I made the promise firmly in my heart and I hope to keep it. – When I made it, my wife was still single – but the promise was easy to make because I was determined to marry her as soon as she was well again. – Time and circumstances prevented our trip as you know; – but as proof of my promise I have the score of half a mass that is lying here waiting to be finished.”
The Great C minor Mass, K.427, was composed by Mozart in Vienna in 1782 and 1783, and remained unfinished, missing large portions of the ‘Credo’ and the complete ‘Agnus Dei’.
Mozart and Constanze arrived in Salzburg on July 29 (Nannerl’s birthday was on the 30th). They remained in Salzburg for three months and began their return trip on October 27, 1783, at 9,30 in the morning. The day before their departure, on 26 October 1783, the first performance of the Great C minor Mass took place in the Church of St. Peter’s Abbey in the context of a Roman Catholic mass. (This is the view of most scholars, while others discuss that Mozart’s sister wasn’t specific about which Mass was performed on this day of 26 October.)
The performers were members of the ‘Hofmusik’, the musicians employed at the court of Prince-Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo. The C minor Mass was rehearsed with Mozart’s former colleagues in the Kappelhaus of the Church on 23 October 1783.
At the premiere, the ‘Kyrie’, ‘Gloria’ and ‘Sanctus’ were presented. Constanze sang the “Et incarnatus est”.
Robert W. Gutman on the Great C minor Mass in his “Mozart – A Cultural Biography” :
“If, in the eyes of the Salzburg Residenz, Mozart no longer existed – officialdom avoided mention of his name – he did remain a presence to many in the city (and, indeed, at court) who continud to perform his music. In 1782 they had even received something new from his pen: to celebrate his elevation to the nobility, Siegmund Haffner the Younger had commissioned a work from him. Even while laboring against the clock to arrange The Abduction for winds – “otherwise someone will beat me to it and have the profits instead of me” – he made time, at Leopold’s insistence, to write what would be refined into the second Haffner Symphony, K.385. It had been hard upon his wedding day when he posted to Leopold the finale, a Presto embodying a reference to Osmin’s aria in The Abduction: “How I will triumph!”
(Leopold had dragooned him into fulfilling the request of a family that had supported his interests since his childhood. As he composed the new Haffner music, he sent it piecemeal to the mail coach. When Leopold returned the entire composition to Vienna early the following year, Mozart gazed in amazement at what he had conceived under pressure and scribbled as fast as pen could travel: “The new Haffner Symphony has in truth surprised me, for I had forgotten every note of it. Indeed, it must make a good effect.”)
Such confidence sank as he confronted the reality of the Salzburg journey , which, one excuse after the other, had resolved itself into a series of postponements. He fixed upon departing in high summer (when pupils broke off their lessons) even though two dark patches hovered above the plan: misgivings about the reception his bride might find in the Tanzmeisterhaus and his fear of arrest upon entering the archbishopric. (“A priest is capable of anything.”) He suggested a meeting in Munich rather than Salzburg, but Leopold indicated that its officials had signaled indifference to the visit. He recognized Mozart’s prevarications as proceeding from a divided spirit. But all at once Mozart determined to face the troublesome issues and redefine himself in his family’s eyes: to demonstrate his new commitments and demand respect for them. At the end of July 1783, he and Constanze left Raimund with a foster mother in the suburb of Ober-Neustift – they foresaw an absence of a month at most – and set out for Salzburg. Family letters wanting, little of importance concerning the visit has come down except passing words about the mass in C minor, K.427.
Its relationship to a vow Mozart had taken somewhat before his union with Constanze remains obscure, as does the nature of the promise itself. She had fallen ill, and he determined to make her his wife upon her recovery. His oath to compose a mass and perform it in Salzburg – “with all my heart and without condition I gave my word and in like manner I hope to keep it” – united concepts of love, thankfulness, reunion, reconciliation, repair, and, with Raimund’s birth, took on the dimension of continuity (unless he committed himself after marrying and only with regard to her safe accouchment). The proof of his having undertaken the obligation, he assured a father ever suspicious of his high-flown assertions, resided in a “well-grounded hope” to complete “the score of half a mass lying here (Vienna)”.
The performance of the mass was to take place in Salzburg’s monastery church of St. Peter’s, where he had old friends, among them Kajetan Hagenauer (Father Dominicus). Mozart’s crossing the threshold of the cathedral where Colloredo presided remained out of the question. Yet, in diplomatic deference, St. Peter’s, likewise, would have had to close its doors to the renegade had the Residenz remonstrated. It, however, looked away even as its own musicians joined the rehearsals in its Kapellhaus – the resources of St. Peter’s alone would have been unequal to the score – which, without the Residenz’s studied, in fact, beneficent aloofness, would also have been out of bounds.
Of the mass he brought to Salzburg only the Kyrie and Gloria stood complete, along with the substance of the Sanctus. The Credo existed only up to the Crucifixus, and nothing of the Agnus Dei had come to paper. (At the performance, plainchant or material adapted from his earlier masses may have filled the gaps. Perhaps he formed an ad hoc Agnus Dei by putting to work music adapted from preceeding movements, the procedure in part followed in the posthumous completion of his Requiem.). Sebastian Bach’s and, in particular, Handel’s spirit, breathed in at van Swieten’s matinees, guides whole sections of the score; but, unlike so many period-style efforts by his contemporaries, these double choruses, fugues, and less formal contrapuntal passages never suggest a hand ruffling the shallows to give the impression of depth. Reinterpreted and given new dimension through Mozart’s finely colored harmonies, ever fresh and scrupulous melodic detail, and volatility of humors, these units show forth as brilliant reinventions, as refinements of the pastiche of his Salzburg masses, the rhetorical grandeur of the ‘Qui tollis’ for two four-part choirs the finest example. Moreover, in the tradition of the Salzburg works, he eggs and sugars the baroque pudding with galant touches: rococo and empfindsam enchantments from time to time take the lead, offering their tender beauties and with them textural contrast, as in the exquisite pathos of the ‘Et incarnatus’, the longest and most demanding of the three soprano solos shaped, so Constanze had it, for her voice.
During the stay in Salzburg he would not or could not complete the mass: that the project fell through his fingers may well have been the effect of a change of heart wrought by his recent and intense labors in Vienna upon a set of string quartets, arguing an aesthetic not of the evocative and reminiscent, but, rather, of their assmilation within a new style fully his own. Yet the mass’s incomplete state in no way compromises its distinction as a magnificent compendium juxtaposing the century’s musical vocabularies. Its wanting sections somehow made good, K.427 came to performance on 26 October 1783, the day before the Mozarts took their departure.
In Salzburg Mozart did compose, but alas for posterity, not an Agnus Dei for the mass. A bizarre turn of events led him to write a pair of works for the Archbishop. An ailing Michael Haydn, helpless to complete a set of six duos (for violin and viola) impatiently awaited at the Residenz, turned to the visiting Mozart to furnish the final two. He emulated Haydn’s style, and they passed as his.
Returned home at the end of November 1783, they found little Raimund almost three and a half months in his grave, the victim of dysentery. Epidemics, parasites and accidents wove a pattern of mortality permitting only about half the children of the time to survive infancy. Parents for the most part brought into the world at least twice the number of offspring they hoped to raise: “Birth is halfway to death”, observed Leopold Mozart, his two children the survivors of seven births. Mozart and Constanze mourned their “poor, round, fat and darling little boy”, who had looked so much like his father, “the face as if sculpted” after his. She would be pregnant early in 1784 – toward the end of January they moved from the Judenplatz to the Trattnerhof on the Graben – and their domestic world recovered its order and flourised, as did his career.”
Maynard Solomon on the Great C minor Mass in his ‘Mozart – A Life’ biography :
“By its florid style, bravura solos and great length, it explicitly goes counter to attitudes toward and restrictions upon church music current in the Vienna of Emperor Joseph II, which limited the performance of instrumentally accompanied church music to the court chapel and St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Similarly, it could not have been expected to please Salzburg authorities, whose archbishop held official views on church music very similar to those of Joseph II. In an archiepiscopal letter of 19 June 1780 Colloredo had called for the elimination of complex forms of church music and the substitution of German congregational singing. A pastoral letter of 1782 was directed, Eisen notes, “against the liturgy and the excessive ornateness and ostentation of parish churches”, and accompanied sacred vocal music was greaty discouraged. Mozart’s mass in no way reflected the official new Salzburg style, which limited duration to forty-five minutes and abolished solo singing and fugues. Clearly, he had no intention of compromising his effort to create a dramatically expressive, elevated church music style that transcended the Austrian mass tradition at the same time as it drew freely upon Italian sources as well as on Bach and Handel – made aware of the latter through his close association in Vienna with Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who promoted their music in private concerts there.”
Hermann Abert on the Great C minor Mass in his ‘Mozart’ biography :
“In the present chapter we shall examine only those works that reflect Mozart’s impresions of earlier classics in their freshest and most immediate form. The first and greatest of these works is the C minor mass K427, the genesis of which has already been recounted. Only the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus were finished. Of the Credo, only the opening section was completed in draft score, including the choral voices and bass. Only the most essential elements of the accompaniment are indicated here. In the ‘Et incarnatus’, too, the vocal line is written out in full, together with the obbligato wind instruments and bass, with the rest of the accompaniment merely hinted at.
(The mass was completed by Alois Schmitt of Dresden in 1901, and both the full score and vocal score of this completion were published by Breitkopt & Hartel in Leipzig. For the missing sections, Schmitt drew, in part, on other masses and, in part, on individual surviving sacred works by the composer. Individual endings were newly composed and various changes were made to the accompaniment,too. The arrangement has the great merit of having reintroduced the mass to the sacred repertory, yet the manner of its completion raises considerable doubts. (…) The only sections that can be welcomed unconditionally are the replacement of the ‘Et vitam venturi’ by the corresponding movement from K262 and of the ‘Agnus Dei’ by a repeat of the Kyrie, this last-named change inspired by the example of the Requiem. – Annotation by Cliff Eisen)
What distinguished this torso from all Mozart’s other masses is its tendency towards monumentality, a feature it really shares with only the Munich D minor Kyrie K341. The individual sections are developed on a scale previously unknown in Mozart’s works: the Gloria, for example, is in seven completely independent movements, a structure that reveals that in these large-scale complexes Mozart has abandoned his earlier attempts to use rondo form to impose a formal unity on these movements. Their sheer length, moreover, finds a counterpart in the resources that Mozart employs: whereas all his earlier choruses had been in four parts, there are now frequent examples of five-part writing and even an eight-part double chorus. In keeping with local practice in Salzburg, the orchestral forces include neither clarinets nor flutes but make up for this lack by drawing not only on oboes, bassoons and horns but also trumpets and timpani and even four trombones, although, as was usual in Salzburg at this time, these last-named instruments generally support the voices and only occasionally acquire an independent function.
But the most remarkable aspect of this work is the striking unevenness of its individual sections. Passages of an inspired magnificence that far surpasses anything found in the earlier Masses occur alongside others that bear the dusty imprint of a style that had long been out of fashion. Yet it is the more inspired passages – and it is significant that they are nearly all choral movements – that afford the clearest evidence of the influence of Bach and Handel, with even the opening Kyrie falling under this heading: it is a large-scale ternary structure, the third part of which is a slightly abbreviated and modified repeat of the first, with the ‘Christe eleison’ as its middle section, clearly set apart from the others in terms of its tonality and other features, thereby constituing an oasis of welcome relief within more sombre picture. Unlike most of the earlier Kyrie allegros, this is a movement characterized by austerity and dourness and, as such, an audible echo of the impressions left by Bach. (…)
Perhaps it was the personal disappointments that Mozart endured in Salzburg that robbed him of any desire to complete this remarkable work. Not until 1785 was it to enjoy a curious resurrection in Vienna when Mozart was invited to provide an oratorio for the Tonkünstler- Sozietät concert on 13 and 17 March. In spite of the shortage of time, he accepted the commission as he saw it as a welcome opportunity to introduce the music of his mass, which he held in particularly high regard, to a larger audience. The chosen text was an adaptation of the popular oratorio subject of Davidde penitente, the author of which, hitherto unidentified, was no doubt one of the Viennese court poets. As we know from Johann Sebastian Bach, this retexting of existing music had never been regarded askance by composers of the older period, and the fact that these adapters often revealed a high degree of musical appreciation is clear from the present piece, the text of which is not only poetically impeccable but subtly adapted to suit the expressive content of the individual movements of the mass. All the existing movements were used with minimal changes, the only exception being the Credo, which once again remained unfinished (K469). (…) The result is a work – half oratorio, half cantata – that is bound to create an ambivalent impression on present-day listeners but which was not without importance for the Viennese audiences of Mozart’s day. The special status enjoyed by the Viennese oratorio under Fux had already been undermined by the modern Neapolitan style, but the very fact that Mozart was ablet o risk offering the public a work of such austerity and to call it an oratorio suggests that the old tradition was still very much alive. It was probably only in Vienna at this time that the independent handling of the orchestra and the elaborate artistry of many of the numbers could count on unanimous approval. Even so, the monumental grandeur of the choruses was a risk since, in the wake of Zeno and Metastasio, choruses had largely been suppressed in the Viennese oratorio as elsewhere, yet Mozart was still able to trust inthe abiding appeal of the Fuxian tradition, and on this point he was not mistaken as Davidde penitente proved hugely successful not only in Vienna but elsewhere at German and foreign music festivals until well into the nineteenth century. “
St Peter’s Abbey was founded in 696 by Saint Rupert at the site of a Late Antique church stemming from the first Christianization in the area in the days of Severinus of Noricum. In the Middle Ages, St Peter’s was known for its exceptional writing school. In 1074, Archbishop Gebhard of Salzburg sent several monks to the newly established filial monastery of Admont in the March of Styria. In the 15th century, the abbey adopted the Melk Reforms. In 1623, Archbishop Paris Graf von Lodron founded the Benedictine University of Salzburg, which until its dissolution in 1810 was closely connected to the abbey.
The present-day Romanesque abbey church at the northern foot of the Monchsberg was erected from about 1130 onwards at the site of a previous Carolingian church building, it was dedicated to Saint Peter in 1147. One of the organs had been built on the rood screen in 1444 by Heinrich Traxdorf of Mainz. While the steeple received its onion dome in 1756, the interior, already re-modelled several times, was refurbished in the Rococo style between 1760 and 1782 under Abbot Beda Seeauer by Franz Xaver König, Lorenz Härmbler, Johann Högler, Benedikt Zöpf and others. The high altar is a work by Martin Johann Schmidt. (wiki)
Mozart’s letter of 4 January 1783: from the book of Robert Spaethling
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“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” ~ J. M. Barrie
“Winter giveth the fields, and the trees so old,
their beards of icicles and snow.”
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“On a lone winter evening, when the frost
has wrought a silence.”
~ John Keats
“He withers all in silence, and in his hand unclothes the earth and freezes up frail life.” ~ William Blake (1757-1827)
“He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter… In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.”
~ John Burroughs
“Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter’s evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.”
~ Virginia Woolf
“How bittersweet it is, on winter’s night, to listen, by the sputtering, smoking fire, as distant memories, through the fog-dimmed light, rise, to the muffled chime of churchbell choir.” ~ Charles Baudelaire
“We feel cold, but we don’t mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against the cold, we wouldn’t feel other things, like the bright tingle of the stars, or the music of the Aurora, or best of all the silky feeling of moonlight on our skin. It’s worth being cold for that.” ~ Philip Pullman
“Winter came down to our home one night Quietly pirouetting in on silvery-toed slippers of snow, And we, we were children once again…”
Bill Morgan Jr.
A Winter Wonderland!
“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.”
John Burroughs
“What a severe yet master artist old Winter is… No longer the canvas and the pigments, but the marble and the chisel…”
John Burroughs
“The simplicity of winter has a deep moral. The return of Nature, after such a career of splendor and prodigality, to habits so simple and austere, is not lost either upon the head or the heart. It is the philosopher coming back from the banquet and the wine to a cup of water and a crust of bread.”
John Burroughs
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Tu splendi sopra tutti gli splendori del mio pensiero, tu m’illumini di una luce che è quasi per me insostenibile.
E credere in te soltanto, giurare in te soltanto, riporre in te soltanto la mia fede, la mia forza, il mio orgoglio, tutto il mio mondo, tutto quel che sogno, e tutto quel che spero… Avere un pensiero unico, assiduo, di tutte le ore, di tutti gli attimi… non concepire altra felicità che quella, sovrumana, irraggiata dalla sola tua presenza su l’esser mio… vivere tutto il giorno nell’aspettazione inquieta, furiosa, terribile, del momento in cui ti rivedrò.
Io rinunzierei a tutte le promesse della vita per vivere in una piccola parte del vostro cuore.
Io sono nel vostro sangue e nella vostra anima; io mi sento in ogni palpito delle vostre arterie; io non vi tocco eppure mi mescolo con voi come se vi tenessi di continuo tra le mie braccia, su la mia bocca, sul mio cuore. Io vi amo e voi mi amate; e questo dura da secoli, durerà nei secoli, per sempre. Accanto a voi, vivendo di voi, ho il sentimento dell’infinito, il sentimento dell’eterno. Io vi amo e voi mi amate.
Non ricordo più nulla. Vi amo. Amo voi sola. Penso per voi sola. Vivo per voi sola. Non so più nulla; non ricordo più nulla; non desidero più nulla, oltre il vostro amore.
Tu esalti la mia forza e la mia speranza, ogni giorno. Il mio sangue aumenta, quando ti sono vicino, e tu taci. Allora nascono in me le cose che col tempo ti meraviglieranno. Tu mi sei necessaria.
Quando parliamo insieme, talvolta io sento che la sua voce è l’eco dell’anima mia.
Ci sono certi sguardi di donna che l’uomo amante non scambierebbe con l’intero possesso del corpo di lei. Chi non ha veduto accendersi in un occhio limpido il fulgore della prima tenerezza, non sa la più alte delle felicità umane…
Tu non sai che io ti amo! Avere un pensiero amico, assiduo, di tutte le ore, di tutti gli attimi, sentirti quando io dormo, sentirti sul mio cuore.
Rimani! Riposati accanto a me. Non andare. Io ti veglierò. Io ti proteggerò. Ti pentirai di tutto fuorchè di essere venuta a me, liberamente, fieramente. Ti amo. Non ho nessun pensiero tuo, non ho nel sangue nessun desiderio che non sia per te. Lo sai. Non vedo nella mia vita altra compagna, non vedo altra gioia. Rimani. Riposati. Non temere di nulla. Dormi stanotte sul mio cuore.
Gabriele D’Annunzio
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He drew his last breath on the day of 5 December, at one in the morning, watched by his wife’s sister. His body was washed by loyal friends. They accompanied him when he left his house for the last time. It was them again who brought him to the Saint Stephen Cathedral, in a chapel in which he would wait for the religious ceremony – a simple one, according to the low fee of the third class funeral paid for by Baron Van Swieten. His wife had left the house a few hours after his death, “out of too much pain”, and would stay with friends for the next days. She didn’t keep vigil over his dead body, she didn’t follow him on his last journey. It was winter in Vienna, it was cold, it was almost night… God, what a terrible night of mankind!… One by one, the living abandoned the funeral convoy, and so by the time the hearse had passed the Stubenthor and reached the graveyard of St Marx, Mozart‘s lifeless body was being attended only by the driver of the carriage. By that time, in St Marx there had already been two pauper funerals. Mozart was the third. His body was deposited in the common grave, uppermost, by the gravedigger’s assistant and the driver of the hearst. Then came the night.
Mozart left alone. He remained alone. His wife, “dearest, most beloved little wife”, as he would address her in his letters, didn’t look for his grave for eleven years (some biographers say seventeen). Although her state of health seemed to have quickly improved, since only a few weeks after his demise she was already corresponding with a few well-known editors with a view of selling his manuscripts. And never again, after his death, was she in need to go to Baden for cures; she capitalized his musical inheritance, she remarried, she rewrote his life together with her second husband, and she outlived her first husband fifty years.
None of his close friends, none of those who knew and loved his music and being, no one looked for his grave, not after one day, not after one month, not after one year. It was the “custom” of the time. Relatives and friends paid homage and said goodbye at home, at the church, then the body was taken to the cemetery and buried. Visiting a grave was not customary – there were no Sunday mornings at the cemetery, with flowers and candles. The regulations of the time indicated the deposition in a “common” grave according to the amount of money paid (by the Baron in Mozart’s case), but they did not forbid the placing of a funeral stone on the cemetery wall. Neither Constanze Mozart nor his friends, or the nobles he had ennobled with his feeling and creation, or the Viennese who would hum his melodies in cafes, no one felt the need to mark his resting place, no one searched for him in all those years, no one felt the need to prove their respect and affection by remembering the place where, on top of other bodies, he found his rest…
Ten years after, the common grave was opened, the bones taken out, to make space for other mortals. This was what the third class funeral meant: a grave which confined more bodies together for ten years, and that was all. After ten years, a pile of bones, taken out to be deposited where?… we will never know. A higher class funeral would have (possibly) meant a grave in the family’s property in the St Marx Cemetery. But it would have cost more. And none of those who knew him, who were close to him, none of those whom he had honored with the divine touch of his being, no one felt that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart deserved a funeral of a higher class.
It is 5 December. For 222 years humanity has been waiting for you to come back. Your music has survived and will go on. But we miss your living heart, your soul enlightened by a divine feeling of harmony! For you have been His gift, and few of us have understood…
You, Mozart, harrowing light in the darkness that surrounds us! In your park clad in mourning dress, the leaves of winter are whispering your name. It is 5 December. A serene calm overtaken by the night until the world abandoned itself to the despair of understanding it had lost you forever! If only we could, through our love, resurrect your fragile being, so you could smile to us again, you, Mozart, majestically sleeping in our soul! If only you could feel our hurt, knowing you were summoned forever there where only angels listen to you, shivering in the divine beauty of your music! Oh, Mozart, it is night, a neverending night in a day of 5 December! A day in which both you and us died a little…
Mozart… Mozart… Mozart… celestial echo of humanity’s child…
"There is nothing perfect in this world except Mozart's music" (Thomas Love Peacock)
"Mozart's music is so beautiful as to entice angels down to earth" (Franz Alexander von Kleist)
“It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play only Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille they play Mozart” (Karl Barth)
“In my dreams of heaven, I always see the great Masters gathered in a huge hall in which they all reside. Only Mozart has his own suite” (Victor Borge)
“Mozart makes you believe in God” (Georg Solti)
Mozart is Music.
“Mozart is happiness before it has gotten defined” (Arthur Miller)
“Mozart exists, and will exist, eternally; divine Mozart – less a name, more a soul descending to us from the heavens…” (Charles Gounod)
Mozart's Children 