by Daniel Hathaway
HAPPENING TODAY:
Tonight at 7, the Baldwin Wallace Treble Choir sings a Christmas program in Gamble Auditorium.
At 7:30, guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado (pictured) leads The Cleveland Orchestra with pianist Emanuel Ax in Mozart’s Concerto No. 20 and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in Mandel Hall at Severance Music Center.
And at the same hour, Timothy Weiss conducts the Oberlin Sinfonietta and cellist Miles Reed, in a program that includes Arnold Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, Sebastian Fagerlund’s Octet Autumn Equinox, and a new work by student composer Katya Mueller in Warner Concert Hall.
For details of these and other upcoming events, visit our Concert Listings.
TODAY’S ALMANAC:
On December 5, 1791, Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, who preferred to be called Wolfgang Amadé, died in Vienna after being bedridden for a fortnight with what was officially described as “severe miliary fever,” characterized by a rash that resembles millet seeds.
He left two extended works unfinished — the “Great” Mass in c minor, and the Requiem. Mozart had planned his “Missa Solemnis” for a return visit to his family in Salzburg to introduce his new bride. Constanze had already sung the et incarnatus movement in a performance of the incomplete work during a mass in October of 1783. There’s much speculation about why Mozart never finished the elaborate double-chorus work, but he did retext the movements and use them for his cantata Davide penitente, K. 469.
A web of intrigue surrounds the Requiem, much of it promoted by Mozart’s widow, who tapped Mozart’s pupil, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, to finish the Mass so she could be paid by its commissioner, Count Franz von Walsegg — who may have intended to pass the work off as his own.
Leaving such works unfinished as magnificent ruins has a certain Romantic appeal, but that hasn’t deterred later scholars and composers from tying up their loose ends. In Mozart’s case, later hands have set to work both on the Mass and the Requiem, perhaps none so successfully as those of Robert Levin (pictured), who is famous for channeling the composer by improvising cadenzas when performing the piano concertos. Read an article from the Juilliard Journal here.
Levin started early, completing the “Amen” fugue that Mozart had sketched out for the end of the “Lacrimosa” movement, and performing it during his sophomore year at Harvard (I happened to sing in that concert). This weekend, lift a glass to Mozart either by revisiting your favorite performance of Süssmayr’s completion of the Requiem, or by getting to know the piece anew through Levin’s ears. There are several performances available on YouTube, including those by Boston Baroque, and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln. You can also compare five different modern completions of the “Amen” Fugue, including Levin’s.
