The Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622 has been called Mozart’s swan song. His last completed work, it was first performed on October 16, 1791 in Prague, less than two months before the composer’s death at the age of 35. At the time, the clarinet was a young instrument still in development, and a newcomer to the orchestra. When the 22-year-old Mozart visited Mannheim, a progressive musical center far ahead of provincial …
The impetus for Mozart’s Kyrie in D minor, K.341 remains a fascinating enigma. Initially, it was believed that Mozart completed this sublime choral fragment in Munich in early 1781. The occasion for which it would have been composed remains unclear. The full instrumentation (which includes two clarinets) suggests that the Kyrie may have been intended for a large-scale Mass which remained unfinished. Sketches from the composer’s final years (1787-91) show that he was …
Mystery and intrigue have long surrounded the genesis of Mozart’s Requiem in D minor. In early July of 1791, an “unknown, gray stranger” visited the composer, bearing a commission for a Requiem from an anonymous patron. At the time, Mozart was working tirelessly to complete two operas, The Magic Flute and La clemenza di Tito. By the time he turned his attention to the Requiem the following September, his health was in terminal decline. He …
During the final year of his life, Mozart was extraordinarily productive. In the months leading up to his illness, and eventual death on December 5, 1791 at the age of 35, Mozart completed a series of works including the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, a final String Quartet, K. 614, the motet Ave verum corpus, K. 618, and the operas Così fan tutte and The Magic Flute. The monumental Requiem in D minor remained unfinished until …
In the opening scene of Mozart’s 1789 comic opera, Così fan tutte (“Women are like that”), two military officers, Ferrando and Guglielmo, boast that their fiancées, Dorabella and Fiordiligi, would never be unfaithful. Don Alfonso makes a wager that, within a day, he can prove the officers wrong. He believes that all women are ultimately fickle. Accepting the wager, Ferrando and Guglielmo pretend to go off to war, but then return in disguise and attempt to seduce the …
The introduction which opens the first movement of Mozart’s String Quartet No. 19 in C Major, K. 465 foreshadows the mystery and Romantic pathos of late Beethoven. At moments, it even flirts with the twentieth century atonality of Arnold Schoenberg. In the first bars, the viola and two violins enter, one at a time, over a pulsating “C” in the cello. Their chromatic lines wander across a haunting and barren landscape, shrouded …
Listen to the instrumental music of Mozart, and you may hear the unfolding of a virtual opera without words. Transcending mere vocal virtuosity, Mozart’s greatest operas offer layers of character development and dramatic sophistication. The instrumental lines of the orchestra rise to new prominence and engage with the voices onstage to create a magically enhanced drama. The literal reality of the story meets a deeper poetic reality. Boundaries are blurred and musical …