Mozart`s love offering in the sacred realm

New York may be on the Hudson River, but the Hudson is on the Danube in early July, when the Hudson Valley Singers from New York and the New York Metropolitan Opera conductor Eugene Sirotkine join the Budapest Victoria Chamber Chorus, the Ferenc Liszt Chorus and Chamber Orchestra, and Hungarian vocal soloists, in a pair of performances of Mozart`s Mass in C minor.

The first performance will be on Sunday, July 1 at 4pm at the Academy of Music. The second will be given the following Friday, July 6 at 8pm in cooler circumstances, in the Matthias Church on Castle Hill.

Like the Requiem Mass of 1791, the C minor Mass (1783) remains an unfinished torso. Mozart completed the Kyrie, Gloria and Credo up to the Et incarnatus. After that, only fragments remain. Regardless, it is one of Mozart`s greatest achievements in the realm of sacred music.

What was Mozart`s purpose in writing the C minor Mass, and why didn`t he finish it? We can only speculate.

We do know that this mass was not commissioned, so perhaps the lack of an economic motive for completing it played a role in its fate as a sublime fragment.

But perhaps its failure to reach completion is also symbolic of its failure for another purpose. Against his father`s wishes, Mozart had married Constanze in 1782, creating a breach between Wolfgang and his family.

Mozart, now living in Vienna, had promised to visit his family in Salzburg, which he had to put off because of his wife`s giving birth to their first child. The C minor Mass was probably in part a peace offering to keep his promise to visit and to heal that family wound.

Moreover, it was also surely a love offering to his bride. Constanze later said that Wolfgang had made a vow to write a mass of thanksgiving if Constanze managed her difficult pregnancy.

Indeed, he wrote the florid and virtuoso soprano solos for his soprano wife, which she sang in the first performance in Salzburg when Mozart finally took her to meet his father and sister.

However, Leopold Mozart and Wolfgang`s sister, Nannerl, didn`t truly accept Constanze, so the family rift was never really overcome, a sad failure to both son and father.

Finally, Mozart no doubt wanted to experiment with the mass form. Like Bach`s huge and impractical B minor Mass, written as a sort of personal testament of his faith and what he was capable of creating in this form, Mozart planned a similarly expansive structure, which would not have fit church services of the time.

Keep it simple

There were strictures on Austrian church music, to keep it simple, non-florid and short. Economy of means and relative severity of style were the dictate by Emperor Joseph II.

Mozart took the exact opposite path in the C minor Mass. Not only did he plan the dimensions far beyond what was allowed. The melodic richness and invention, the complex structures and the large musical forces which are called for also went counter to any practical realization and acceptance.

Act of defiance

So we can see that Mozart created this mass as an act of defiance and independence, but at the same time - and more importantly - an act of love and spiritual/artistic devotion, devoid of economic motives. It is one of Mozart`s most personal statements.

In the two Budapest performances, the soprano solos originally sung by Constanze Mozart will be sung by Ingrid Kertesi, who has been a member of the Hungarian State Opera since 1985, and sings with other opera companies as well (Berlin Komische Opera, Düsseldorf Opera House, Volksoper Vienna, etc).

The other vocal solos will be given by mezzo-soprano Katalin Gémes, tenor András Molnár and bass Péter Cser, all members of the Hungarian State Opera.

The Hudson Valley Singers, founded in 1951, is an amateur chorus consisting of 75 singers, who give two concerts a year in the lower Hudson Valley. It performs the classical choral repertory from the 17th to 20th centuries.

Its conductor has been Eugene Sirotkine since 1998. Born in St Petersburg, Sirotkine studied both choral and orchestral conducting at the St Petersburg Conservatory before moving to the US.

He is both Assistant Chorusmaster and Assistant Conductor at the New York Metropolitan Opera, and has conducted various orchestras and choral groups around the world.

Mozart: Mass in C minor
Hudson Valley Singers, Liszt Ferenc Chamber Orchestra
Kertesi, Sirotkine
Sunday, July 1, 4pm
Academy of Music
Friday, July 6, 8pm
Matthias Church

Kevin Shopland 
www.budapestsun.com - Wednesday, June 27, 2007