It is all part of marking his birth 250 years ago.
I finally went to one of the many all Mozart programs that are being offered this year.
The first piece of the evening was Piano Concerto No. 19.
I got to my seat a few minutes before the start of the program and in my hurry, I didn't pick up the program until intermission.
So when I saw the pianist take the stage, I noticed he looked really young!
He did a wonderful job with this happy little piece.
During intermission, I got a program and saw that the pianist was a last minute substitute because of illness. Orion Weiss is merely twenty-four! He is getting some gigs around the USA according to his schedule over at IMG Artists.
There was another substitution also for illness. Celena Shafer joined three other young soloists for the Requiem.
Photo credit: Dario Acosta
Image source: http://www.colbertartists.com/images/artists/thumbnails/shafer1c_TN.jpg
She is managed by Colbert Artists.
The Mozart Requiem is one of a handful of works I have heard on CD many many times and thoroughly enjoy and have longed to hear in a live performance.
The stage was set: young rising stars as soloists, college students for the choir, the renown LA Philharmonic musicians and Christoph von Dohnányi, an internationally known conductor who specializes in blending voice with instruments in operatic works.
Can you feel the anticipation I felt?
The CD of the Requiem played on my boom-box sitting on top of my bookcase does not do justice to the dynamic range of this amazing composition. I've never fully appreciated that this is truly a choral work until this concert.
The power of the Thornton singers just blows the limited dynamic range of my pitiful speakers in my apartment or iPOD. Thus, for this concert, I have to give my highest high praise to USC Thornton Choral Artists. The voices were heard and felt at the Walt Disney Hall and the audience gave sustained standing ovations for the choir director and the Thornton vocalists.
The second observation I would make is the incredible power of the pause!
Dohnányi with a wave of his hand would have the choir stop on a dime and the silence would hang for a moment and then the music or voices would start up again. These incredibly brief respites from sound were powerful punctuation marks. I can't explain it, I just felt it.
Since I don't know Latin, most of the lyrics escape me. However, I have some passing familiarity with the liturgical structure of the mass. The music communicates the emotional content and my limited knowledge provided a rational connection to what my "soul" was feeling.
If you are curious, check out the lyrics of the Requiem.
If you feel a little spoked by the "Dies Irae," you have reason to be:
Dies irae, dies illa (This day, this day of wrath)If you feel soothed by the "Recordare," take a look at the words:
Solvet saeclum in favilla (Shall consume the world in ashes)
Recordare, Jesu pie, (Remember, gentle Jesus,)If you feel quiet tension in the air during the "Lacrimosa," you should know some believed (it is disputed) that Mozart was working on that part hours before his death:
Quod sum causa tuae viae (that I am the reason for your time on earth)
Ne me perdas illa die. (do not cast me out on that day.)
Quaerens me, sedisti lassus (Seeking me, you sank down wearily)
Redemisti Crucem passus (you saved me by enduring the Cross)
Tantus labor non sit cassus. (such travail must not be in vain.)
Lacrimosa dies illa, (That day is one of weeping,)If at the end of the piece, you walk out feeling hopeful, it is because the music goes out with a flourish and the words are hopeful:
Qua resurget ex favilla (On which shall rise again from the ashes)
Judicandus homo reus. (The guilty man, to be judged.)
Huic ergo parce, Deus (Therefore spare this one, O God)
Pie Jesu Domine, (Merciful Lord Jesus,)
Dona eis requiem. Amen. (Give them rest. Amen.)
Lux aeternum luceat eis, Domine (May eternal light shine upon them, O Lord)UPDATE: There is more about the Mozart requiem here and here.
Cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum (With Thy Saints forever)
quia pius es. (for Thou art good.)
Requiem aeternam, dona eis, Domine (Eternal rest give unto them, O Lord)
et lux perpetua luceat eis. (And let perpetual light shine upon them.)
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum (With Thy saints forever)
quia pius es. (for Thou art good.)
UPDATE: Mark Swed of the LA Times was somewhat ambivalent about the concert. Excerpt:
The Philharmonic had meant its celebration to be more melancholy than most by dwelling on Mozart's puzzling last year and untimely death at 35. But fate stepped in. Flu sidelined Andreas Haefliger, engaged to play Mozart's last piano concerto. As a last-minute substitution, a 24-year-old recent Juilliard graduate, Orion Weiss, who made his Philharmonic debut at the Hollywood Bowl in September, performed the earlier Concerto No. 19 in F, K. 459.
Another young artist, soprano Celena Shafer, was the second last-minute replacement Thursday, substituting for Barbara Bonney, who also came down with the flu this week. Given that the three other soloists in the Requiem — Ruxandra Donose, Eric Cutler and Alfred Reiter — are emerging artists as well and that the chorus was made up of USC students, it took some doing to cast a mellow, autumnal pall over Disney. But Dohnányi did his best.
........
Dohnányi took a grim, majestic approach. The performance was impressive, and not even this intimidating conductor could make the bursting-with-energy Thornton Choral Artists sound anything but exuberant. The four soloists might have been a jubilant opera cast; all were exciting. The orchestra, though, was asked for thickness and weight, and details were lost.
But what a letdown when the music turns, as it does, say, in the Sanctus, unequivocally second-rate. Indeed, Dohnányi's seriousness and the singers' enthusiasm only exacerbated the score's dismaying discrepancies.
Something needs to be done. Scholars have attempted other solutions, trying hard to patch together a version that sounds more like Mozart. Robert Levin has come closest. But new Mozart Requiems are needed that stop pretending to be Mozart, versions that acknowledge what he wrote and what he did not.
The piano concerto in the first half was Mozart in a lighter vein, but it didn't always sound so. K. 459 is boyish music, and in Weiss it had a boyish soloist. He is a pianist more lyrical than boisterous, with a small, sweet sound and an elegant sense of phrasing. He played Mozart as chamber music. Dohnányi did not.
Sometimes, as this uncomfortable evening demonstrated, it really is best to just let Mozart be.
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