Old Man Mozart?
This Saturday’s concert by the Waltham Singers includes works by Schubert, Mendelssohn and Mozart. It’s not often Wolfgang Amadeus is the Grand Old Man rather than the Spirit of Youth but our first work, the Mass in G was written by Schubert aged 18 and Mendelssohn couldn’t have been more than 14 when he wrote the 10th of his String Symphonies to entertain his parents’ sophisticated friends in their Berlin salon. Though Mozart’s Ave Verum Corpus, was written in what would be the final year of his brief life, it’s hauntingly reflective rather than mournful and his ‘Solemn Vespers’ written ten years earlier is confident and affirmative. I’m confident that we’ll all end the evening feeling years younger.
Mass number 2 in G Major D 167
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Schubert was just 18 in 1815 when he wrote the Mass in G major. He’d been educated at the Stadtkonvict (Imperial Seminary) in Vienna where he had won a choral scholarship. He’d sung as a treble in the Court Chapel, learned the piano, played in the orchestra and studied under Antonio Salieri and Joseph Eybler. He had become familiar with the music of Mozart, Beethoven, Joseph and Michael Haydn.
When his voice broke in 1813 and his scholarship ended, he returned home to work in his father’s school, trying – and possibly failing- to keep order among the youngest children. It was not a happy period. Salieri, however, continued to teach and encourage him, arranging for his first Mass (in F) to be performed in Lichtenthal Parish Church in October 1814. This was a suburban venue sufficiently prosperous to have a choir of approximately 25 people and an orchestra of similar size. The soprano solos were sung by the talented singer Therese Grob, whose musical family welcomed Schubert into their home. It’s possible that Schubert was in love with Therese though marriage was not a possibility. In Metternich’ Austria prospective bridegrooms had to give a strict account of their financial capability to support a household. Instead, Schubert wrote a large number of songs for her and her family, as well as the delightful solo parts for the Mass in G where the soprano appears to be given noticeably more airtime than either the tenor or bass.
1815 was a prolific year for Schubert – his Wikipedia entry estimates his output as 20,000 bars of music. Although still officially working as a schoolteacher, he was finding plenty of time to make music with friends and to begin to accept some informal commissions. Although the Mass in G may have been a commissioned work to follow his success of the previous year, it wasn’t until 1816 that he first composed directly for money. During 1815 he produced cantatas, quartets, two theatrical works, symphonies, overtures and, of course, songs. His first setting of Goethe’s ‘Erl König’ was written in an afternoon just a few weeks before the Mass in G and performed repeatedly with enthusiastic friends in the practice room at the Stadtkonvict until Schubert’s right hand was worn out playing triplets. The Mass itself was written in just six days – March 2-7 -- and performed in Lichtenthal Church.
The Mass in G is a ‘Missa Brevis’ consisting of six movements and lasting a little over 20 minutes. In its earliest versions it’s lightly scored for strings and organ though Schubert returned to add wind and some brass in later revisions.
Movements:
1. KYRIE: The first movement is in a lilting ¾ time which might make one think of spring, even without knowing the time of year in which it was written. It’s quietly joyful and singable with some shapely modulations for the soloist.
2. GLORIA: The ‘Gloria’ is written in the dominant key of D and has both more excitement (mainly in the strings) and more majesty. It’s affirmative (how can Glorias not be?) but there’s also a pleasant conversational feel between the soprano and bass soloists and the chorus during the intercessions of the central section. Then the movement ends with loud proclamations of God’s uniqueness and majesty, ‘tu solus sanctus altissimus’ (‘you alone are holy and the most high’).
3. CREDO: Austria in Schubert’s time was a solidly Catholic and conservative country under the firm control of Chancellor Metternich. In the following decade Schubert and some of his friends would be briefly arrested for suspected seditious behaviour, though only one of them served a prison sentence. Schubert had been singing masses since the age of eleven and seems to have moved towards agnosticism from an initial position of belief. ‘In order to analyse anything one must first believe in something,’ he wrote. ‘Intelligence is nothing but analysed faith.’ So, is it significant that, aged 18, he omits the conventional Credo affirmation of belief in ‘one holy and apostolic church’ or is it merely that this Mass in G is ‘brevis’ (short)?
Musically the singers’ declarations of faith are unadorned and straightforward. There’s pleasure for the listener in the continuous staccato accompaniment from the cellos and double basses. Listen for a truly lovely moment when the violins begin weaving their own melody above the verbal explanations of Christ coming down from heaven and being born as man. It’s not complex music but it’s accomplished and appealing and the kaleidoscopic patterns in the strings offer plenty of interest.
4. SANCTUS: If the ear has begun to crave more varied rhythms, the ‘Sanctus’ opening provides them. There’s a moment of fun when the strings are allowed a menacing trill which, in other circumstances might herald the arrive of a pantomime devil, but instead prefaces a light and springy ‘Hosanna’ where the four parts of the chorus have the fun of singing a canon.
5. BENEDICTUS: The soprano and tenor soloists interweave graceful melodies and are joined by the bass. Once again there are equally lovely lines given to the strings. Then the chorus returns with a reprise of the ‘Hosanna’.
6. AGNUS DEI: The final movement is a yearning plea for mercy, mainly expressed by the soloists. There are just a couple of moments when the viola catches our attention, and we may remember this was Schubert’s instrument in his family’s quartets. Perhaps this movement subsides rather than ends but this certainly represents a treasurable six days’ work by the eighteen-year-old.
String Symphony no 10 in B minor
Felix Mendelssohn 1809 - 1847
Felix Mendelssohn was born on 3 February 1809, in the independent city state of Hamburg. He was the second of four children; his older sister Fanny also possessed exceptional and musical talent. In 1811 the family had to move to Berlin, for fear of French reprisal at the Mendelssohn Bank’s sanction-breaking activities. In Berlin they lived in a highly intellectual, musical and artistic environment. Mendelssohn’s first public concert was probably at the age of nine years old, and his 13 string symphonies were written in his early teens between 1821-1823. They are chamber music, written in the classical style of Haydn, Mozart and CPE Bach, and were first performed by a private orchestra for his parents’ intellectual and wealthy friends.
Symphony number 10 is in a single movement to be played Adagio – Allegro – Piu presto.
Ave Verum Corpus
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart wrote the motet in D major, Ave Verum Corpus, in June 1791. He was living in Vienna, busily engaged in composing The Magic Flute but had taken a few days off to visit his wife Constanzia who was pregnant and taking the ‘cure’ in Baden. The motet was a present for his friend Anton Stoll, church musician at St Stephan’s. It was intended to be performed for the feast of Corpus Christi, a Roman Catholic ‘Solemnity’ traditionally celebrated in early June.
Solemn Vespers / Vesperae solennes de confessore
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791
Listening to the Mozart's confident and affirmative Vesperae solennes de confessore written in 1780 it’s hard to believe that he was feeling frustrated and miserable. He was living in Salzburg and working as cathedral organist for Archbishop Colloredo. This piece and the earlier Vesperae solennes de Dominica, which was written in 1779 and uses the same psalms, were written for performance in Salzburg Cathedral. It’s not known exactly how they were performed – almost certainly not in the continuous stream that we usually hear them today. They were probably interspersed with other liturgical rites and texts. The first vespers was probably to be performed on Sundays (de Dominica) and this set for saints’ days (de confessore).
Mozart was then in his early twenties. Until January 1779 he had been in Paris, accompanied by his mother Anna Maria. Although there had been various good musical experiences, real success had eluded him and his beloved mother had died. Mozart had been by her side and did his best to reassure his father and sister that it had been an acceptable death and that it was clearly according to the will of God. He insisted that he was coming home so that they could ‘all live together as peacefully, honourably and contentedly as it is possible to do in this world.’ Nevertheless, it didn’t quite work like that. Even as he announced he was coming home to be a good son, he had made clear his preference for Mannheim over Salzburg and had delayed his return to spend more time in Mannheim and then had travelled via Munich to propose marriage to the singer Aloysia Weber -- where he had been humiliatingly rejected.
The problems with Salzburg seem to have been the general organisation of the musicians and their undisciplined behaviour -- ‘coarse, slovenly and disreputable’ wrote Mozart – and the conservative musical tastes of Archbishop Colloredo who preferred the old church style (stile antico) to the more modern homophonic and melodic style. From an audience point of view, the contrast of the counterpoint of the Laudate pueri (movement 4) in the Vespers with the flowing melody of the Laudate Dominum (movement 5) may make us glad that Mozart used both.
Movements:
1. Psalm 110 DIXIT DOMINUS ‘God Said’:
Opens confidently in the key of C, a key frequently used by Mozart and perhaps officially favoured by patrons with conservative tastes. Research into c18th and early c19th key characteristics (Rita Steblin, UMI Press) describes this as a ‘pure’ key, expressing innocence and naivety. Both Mozart’s Vespers sets written in Salzburg begin and end in this key. (Handel’s more robust and belligerent ‘Dixit Dominus’ which we sang last year is in Bb, which apparently suggests cheerful love, a clear conscience and hope for a better world.)
A feature of this movement, and the work as a whole, is the impetus given by the writing for strings. While the voices are articulating the words of the psalm with clarity and affirmation - usually one note per syllable - the strings are bustling along, keeping things going. This is perhaps most noticeable towards the end of the psalm when the chorus has sustained, dotted minims, rising with the sense of the words ‘ex altabit caput’ as God ‘lifts up his head’. The upper strings meanwhile display their excitement in rushing, ascending semiquavers.
There’s a similar moment in the doxology when the thrill of ‘saecula saeculorum’ (‘for ever and ever’) is expressed by the voices in a sustained sequence of dotted minims while more overt excitement comes from the rushing accompaniment.
The ‘doxology’ is the expression of praise and agreement that comes at the end of every psalm that is sung here. ‘Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost…’ etc. It may be co-incidental, just because we are hearing the same words six times, rather like a refrain, but it seems to me that Mozart gives some of his most emphatic writing to these expressions of agreement. Phrases such as ‘Sicut erat’ (as it was) are made to stand out. In this movement, for instance, the chorus weighs in with this phrase just after the quartet of soloists have initiated the praise to God the father etc. In other movements Mozart manages the affirmation in different ways which listeners may find interesting to compare.
2. Psalm 111 CONFITEBOR TIBI ‘I will praise you’
Set in the key of Eb major which is affirmed immediately with the tonic triad. There’s musical emphasis on the ‘whole-heartedness’ of this praise ‘in toto corde’. The soprano part has octave leaps on the word ‘corde’ (heart) which are supported by the lower voices. Octave leaps come for all voice parts in the section written as a fugue ‘Confessio et magnificentia opus’ – acknowledging the magnificence of God’s works. If this Vespers setting was for the saints described as ‘confessors’ – those who live out their faith in their lives and actions, but don’t necessarily become martyrs, one hopes that this strong, fairly traditionally written movement gladdened the Archbishop’s heart. (And for those who wonder what Eb major signifies in the theory of keys, it’s apparently ‘love devotion and intimate conversation with God’.)
3. Psalm 112 BEATUS VIR ‘Blessed is the man’
This movement in 34 time is marked Allegro Vivace and is written in a more flowing style as the soloists alternate with the chorus in spelling out the benefits of individual righteousness. In contrast to the generally straightforward word-setting, the soprano soloist is given a magnificent coloratura outburst on the word ‘exaltabitur’ (‘exalted’).
4. Psalm 113 LAUDATE PUERI ‘Boys praise the Lord’
If ‘Beatus Vir’ has expressed the individually righteous and admired man, ‘Laudate pueri’ is for the humbler sort of adherent, the servants rather than the masters. Even the ‘barren woman’ (‘sterilem’) might get the chance to become a ‘happy mother of sons’ (‘laetantem matrem filiorum’) if she praises God sufficiently. This movement is for chorus only and is the most fully written in the old-fashioned contrapuntal style.
5. Psalm 117 LAUDATE DOMINUM ‘Praise the Lord’
A lyrical exposition by the soprano soloist that has become celebrated in its own right. The key is F, the time a flowing 6/8. The upper strings begin by doubling the solo line but then support her with chirruping quavers of agreement while the lower parts play semi-quaver arpeggios that help to sweep the music along. All that is required of the chorus is that they join in the doxology (‘Gloria Patri’…etc) agreeing with all that has been so beautifully expressed.
6. MAGNIFICAT ‘My Soul Praises’
Back to the key of C and to my ears easily the most quirky, fun and joyful of the movements. The slightly lumbering triplets of the Adagio opening come as a happy shock to the ears after the super-smoothness of the ‘Laudate Dominum’. The octave jumps for the chorus are also surprising as they bat the word ‘Magnificat’ between the parts almost like a game. It’s a glorious moment when the soprano seizes her chance with a burst of glorious melody ‘Et exultavit spiritus meus’ (‘and my spirit rejoices’). First the chorus comes in to support her and then all four soloists agree that the mercy of God (‘misericordia ejus’) will be on all who fear him. All is brought to a happy conclusion with the last of the doxologies. As in the first movement this is initiated by the soloists who announce the message ‘Gloria patri et filio et spiritus sacnti’ (‘Glory be to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit’) which is then affirmed by the chorus ‘Sicut erat in principio’ (‘as it was in the beginning’).
One of the reasons Mozart was miserable in Salzburg was that there was no opportunity for opera or other dramatic writing. Achieving such interplay between the different vocal forces in a ‘Magnificat’ obviously wasn’t sufficient. He was thrilled when a commission came from the Elector of Bavaria to come to Munich and write an opera. The title was Idomeneo and it was his first major operatic success. He never returned to Salzburg again.