MOZART’S JOYS AND SORROWS: REQUIEM AND CORONATION MASSES

What is it in Mozart’s music that delights, provokes, and moves us so completely?  From ebullient highs to heart-breaking lows, the emotional power of his compositions is immediate and relatable, some two and a quarter centuries after they were written.

MOZART’S JOYS AND SORROWS pairs two of the composer’s most beloved works, the Coronation Mass and the Requiem, interspersing movements with readings from Mozart’s personal letters to family and loved ones and providing an intimate experience of his music.

The raw honesty and lively humor of Mozart’s letters give insight into his restlessly inventive mind. Brett Jones reads from these personal exchanges;  Alejandro Hernandez-Valdez conducts the VBF Orchestra and Choir.

Learn before you listen. Join us for a pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m.: “Life After Death – The Completion of Mozart’s Requiem,” with George Stauffer, Dean of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.

“I played my first concerto, the one I performed in my own concert—They wanted me to repeat the Rondeau—so I sat down again—but rather than just repeat the Rondeau, I asked to have the conductor’s podium removed and played it alone.—I wish you could have heard how this little surprise delighted the audience—they didn’t just applaud but shouted ‘Bravo!’ and ‘Bravissimo’—The emperor stayed and listened until I had finished playing—and when I left the clavier, he left his loge.—He stayed just to hear me . . .” Letter to his father, April 12, 1783

“Since Death, if you really think about it, is the true and ultimate purpose of life, I have over the last few years formed such a close relationship with this true friend of humankind that his image no longer holds anything terrifying for me; instead it holds much that is soothing and consoling! And I thank my God that he has blessed me with the insight, you know what I mean, which makes it possible for me to see death as the key to our ultimate happiness . . .” Letter to his father, April 22, 1787

Victoria Bach Festival Orchestra and Chorus, Sanctus from Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C minor, K. 427, Craig Hella Johnson, conductor • June 16, 2006, Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church