ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to “Major and Minor Masterpieces,” where we focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
Today we’re examining some of the music that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed in 1791, the last year of his life, including his final concerto and the overtures to two of his final operas.
Mozart’s 10-year friendship with clarinetist Anton Stadler resulted in a wealth of works he composed for Stadler’s instruments, the clarinet and basset clarinet. These works included accompaniment for two arias from the opera “La Clemenza di Tito”; and the work we are about to hear, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622.
Completed in early October 1791— less than two months before the composer’s early death, at the age of 35, it was not only Mozart’s last concerto, but his last instrumental work of any kind.
The manuscript, however, went missing for 10 years after Mozart’s death, and when the concerto was published in 1801, it was in a version without the lower notes and that is the version that we mostly hear today.
Today, however, we have it in its original scoring, with Ernst Schlader, basset clarinet, joining the period-instrument ensemble Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, lead by concertmaster Bernhard Forck.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “‘CLARINET CONCERTO’ IN A MAJOR”)
You’ve heard basset clarinetist Ernst Schlader soloing in the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K.622, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, lead by concertmaster Bernhard Forck.
Among the works that Mozart wrote in the very last months of his life was the last of his five string quintets, in E-flat major, K.614. Mozart’s string quintets add a second violist to the standard string quartet, and there’s evidence that he himself played one of the viola parts in performances of at least several of them. He finished it in April 1791, and it is his last chamber music work.
Let’s hear this Sony Classical recording by the Juilliard Quartet.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “‘STRING QUINTET’ IN E-FLAT MAJOR”)
The Juilliard Quartet, with John Graham, second viola, has performed Mozart’s String Quintet in E-flat major, K.614, on “Major and Minor Masterpieces” here on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I’m your host, Eric Harrison of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
[EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
SARAH BUFORD, PRODUCER:
Hey listeners, welcome back to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I’m your producer, Sarah Buford, and it's time for our show’s little educational session, in which we break down some of the terminology we use when describing classical music and its history.
Eric, in an earlier episode you promised you would eventually provide a definition for the term “fugue” for example “Toccata and Fugue.” Here’s your chance.
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Well, Sarah, to understand the term “fugue,” we must first explore “counterpoint,” which is the combination of two or more melodic lines, each succeeding line described as “counterpoints” to the first.
SARAH: Would you say counterpoints are like foils or oppositions to the previous line?
ERIC: Well not exactly, this isn’t a musical debate but counterpoint does involve musical lines that sometimes move in opposite directions at the same time. In some cases, the second line imitates the first only at an interval of five steps known as “fifth,” higher or lower. But sometimes in the midst of a contrapuntal composition, the composer might take a line in a completely different direction including even turning the line upside down.
SARAH: Oh okay, that makes a lot more sense about direction. I mean when you go upside down, it’s quite literally a different direction by the end of it. So, a fugue is…
ERIC: A fugue is a contrapuntal composition in two or more voices, in which a short melody or phrase — the subject — is introduced by one part and successively taken up by a second, transposed and sometimes slightly altered. Meanwhile, the first voice continues; additional voices follow and the subject is subsequently developed by interweaving the parts.
The word presumably derives from the Latin word “fuga,” or flight.
Fugues show up in the compositions of Mozart, Beethoven — particularly his later works, many if not most of which feature fugues — and Brahms, among many others.
SARAH: Thank you so much, Eric. Let’s get back to more Major and Minor Masterpieces.
[END OF EDUCATIONAL SEGMENT]
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC: Mozart composed operas from his very early years right up until the end of his life — three of them in his last year alone: “Cosi fan tutte,” “La Clemenza di Tito” and “Die Zaubeflote,” better known by its English title, “The Magic Flute.”
His two final operas couldn’t be more different in tone or substance. “La Clemenza di Tito,” or “The Mercy of Titus,” was an opera seria, which, as you might guess, translates more or less to “serious opera.” It was in Italian at a time when Mozart was writing many of his operas in his native German. He put it together — in just one month — on a commission for the coronation of Leopold II as King of Bohemia.
Let’s hear the Academy of Koln and conductor Michael Alexander Willems perform the overture.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “‘LA CLEMENZA DI TITO”)
The Academy of Koln and conductor Michael Alexander Willems performed the overture to Mozart’s opera “La Clemenza di Tito.”
At the same time he was putting that opera together, Mozart was hard at work on “The Magic Flute,” a “Singspiel,” a form of mostly sung musical theater but with some spoken dialogue, and it’s in German.
The Academy of Koln and conductor Michael Alexander Willems perform the overture.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “THE MAGIC FLUTE”)
The Academy of Koln and conductor Michael Alexander Willems perform the overture to Mozart’s “The Magic Flute.”
Much mystery and a wealth of misinformation has surrounded the composition of Mozart’s last work, his Requiem Mass in d minor, K.626.
We know that Mozart was in the midst of composing the music for “The Magic Flute,” in collaboration with actor-singer-impresario Emanuel Schikaneder, who wrote the libretto (and also played Papageno), in the summer of 1791. He was approached by a mysterious stranger with an unusual commission, for a Requiem mass, to be composed and delivered as soon as possible.
It later emerged that the commissioner was a Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach, an Austrian nobleman who was, at least in his own estimation, a composer. But because he had more money than musical talent, he made a practice of commissioning works by well-known composers, recopying them and passing them off as his own.
Mozart, desperate for money, accepted part payment on the 225 florins he was promised, but put off working on the piece while he labored on “The Magic Flute,” which was already in rehearsals, and “La Clemenza di Tito,” which required that he travel to Prague to supervise rehearsals and performance.
Returning from Prague in September, he began to give his full attention to the Requiem.
Mozart sketched out much of the first half of the piece, orchestrating some of it, concentrating on the vocal lines for the rest. But at his death on Dec. 5, 1791, just weeks before his 36th birthday, the work was only about half done.
Mozart’s widow, Costanze, unable to collect on the remainder of the commission money until the work was finished, turned to a couple of Mozart’s colleagues for help, eventually settling on Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who had been collaborating with her late husband on the Requiem and had worked closely with him on the parts of “La Clemenza di Tito.” Süssmayr subsequently claimed to have completely composed the rest of it himself.
Süssmayr was no Mozart, but the result though with a few awkward moments, was sufficiently stylistically consistent and successful that Süssmayr’s completion — though challenged by other versions over the years — has been the gold standard for performances of this monumental work.
Let’s hear an Erato recording of Mozart’s Requiem in d minor, K.626, with soloists Barbara Schlick, soprano; Carolyn Watkinson, mezzo-soprano; Christoph Pregardien, tenor; and Harry Van Der Kamp, bass, and Ton Koopman conducting the Choir of the Dutch Bach Association and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra on original instruments.
(WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART’S “REQUIEM”)
You’ve head Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem, with Barbara Schlick, soprano; Carolyn Watkinson, mezzo-soprano; Christoph Pregardien, tenor; and Harry Van Der Kamp, bass, and Ton Koopman conducting the Choir of the Dutch Bach Association and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra.
Thanks for tuning in this week to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.