Mozart Venite populi

 Mozart Works / Choral, Sacred, Motet

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Venite populi, K.260 (KV 248a) is one of the composers few works for double choir (an offertorium for two choirs), and one of the few settings of this rare and unusual text. It deserves to be better known.  

The 0ffertorium de venerabili sacramento “Venite populi” à 2 Chori K. 260/248a – dated Salzburg, 1767 by Mozart in his autograph score – clearly reveals a striving for more pronounced contrapuntal work. A short, homophonic central movement is framed by two predominantly polyphonic movements that are fashioned from the same thematic material. The two-chorus texture offers many opportunities for interweaving, as well as contrast and echo effects of all kinds. It is not known who wrote the non-liturgical text. [Music Room]

Title: Venite populi, K.260
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Number of voices: 8vv   Voicing: SATB.SATB
Genre: Sacred, Motet, Eucharistic song

Language: Latin
Instruments: 2 violins, cello, organ (continuo) OR organ (orchestra reduction)

Below, Mozart's Venite populi performed by the Scottish Chamber Choir. Director Mark Hindley, chamber organ Philip Sawyer, violin 1 Kate Miguda, violin 2 Simon Graham, cello Pete Harvey, double bass Emily Scott-Moncrieff. Recorded at Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh on 15 November 2014. Accessed October 27, 2020.

Latin Text:

Venite, populi, venite
de longe venite,
et admiramini gentes.
Venite, populi, venite,
an alia natio tam grandis,
quae habet Deos appropinquantes sibi,
sicut Deus noster adest nobis,
cujus in ara veram praesentiam
contemplamur jugiter per fidem vivam,
an alia natio tam grandis?
O sors cunctis beatior,
O sors sola fidelium,
quibus panis fractio
et calicis communio
est in auxilium.
Eja ergo epulemur
in azymis veritatis et sinceritatis,
eja ergo epulemur
et inebriemur vino laetitiae sempiternae;
an alia natio tam grandis?
Venite, populi, venite. 

English Translation:

Come, O peoples, come;
come from afar,
and marvel, O races.
Come, O peoples, come;
is there any nation so great
that it has its gods so near to it
as our God is near to us,
whose true presence on his altar
we continually contemplate through living faith:
is there any nation so great?
O fate more blessed than all others,
O fate only of the faithful
for whom breaking bread
and sharing the cup
is a help
Therefore let us feast
on the unleavened bread of truth and sincerity,
Let us feast, therefore,
and become drunk with wine of eternal joy;
is there any nation so great?
Come, O peoples, come. 

 

Resources:

A mere mention from A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Mozart, Wolfgang (... a litany 'de venerabili' (243); an offertorium for 2 choirs 'Venite populi' (260); a graduale 'Sancta Maria' (273); a serenade for the wedding...). 

Venite populi (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). CPDL. Accessed October 27, 2020. 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Venite Populi In D Major: Mixed Choir. Music Room. Accessed October 27, 2020.

(c) Oct 2020. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.

Mozart Church Sonatas

Sacred Music  / Epistle Sonatas


While living in Salzburg, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote seventeen Church Sonatas (sonata di chiesa), also known as Epistle Sonatas, between 1772 and 1780. These are short single-movement pieces intended to be played during a celebration of the Mass between the Epistle and the Gospel.

Three of the sonatas (Nos.12,14,17), include oboes, horns, trumpets and timpani. The rest, eight of the sonatas, are scored for organ and strings (with no violas, only two violins and basso continuo), where in some of them (Nos 7-10,13-15,17) the organ has an obligato solo part, while in the other nine sonatas Nos 1-6,11,12,16, the organ accompanies along with the figured bass.

Most of these pieces would be inserted into any mass setting of the appropriate key. Those requiring more instruments than the standard "Salzburg Church Quartet" are meant to go with specific mass settings that have that instrumentation.




Other Links:

Mozart's Salzburg Church Music. www.npr.org. Accessed April 1, 2015.

Resource:

Church Sonatas (Mozart). en.wikipedia.org.  Accessed April 1, 2015.


Video Credit:

Mozart - Complete Church Sonatas. YouTube, uploaded by Jenny. Accessed April 1, 2015.





(c) April 2015. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Mozart Great Mass in C Minor

Sacred Music /

 

Great Mass in C of Mozart premieres in Salzburg, October 26, 1783.

The Great Mass in C Minor, K. 427 (K. 417a), is a musical setting of the Mass of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It was composed in 1782 and 1783 in Vienna. The large scale work remained unfinished. It was set for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra. The Mass was written as a result of a vow Mozart made with himself in relation to Constanze, his wife, and his father, Leopold Mozart.  At that time, his relationship with his father was strained.

As a thanksgiving offering after his marriage to Constanze Weber, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed this "great" Mass in C in 1782 and 1783. The mass was first performed in the Church of St. Peter's Abbey in Salzburg, October 26, 1783. It took place in a Roman Catholic Mass context, with the performers, the Hofmusik, employed at the court of Salzburg's Prince-Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colloredo. At this premiere the soprano solos were sung by Constanze Mozart.




In a letter written to his father, Leopold Mozart (January 4, 1783), Wolfgang mentioned the score of "half a mass lying on his desk bearing witness to the promise". Later that year in St. Peter's Salzburg (October 26), the completed sections of the mass were performed - the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Benedictus, had been completed, but the Credo was not set in full. It was scored in Mozart’s usual draft, and the Agnus Dei was not even begun. 

Orchestral masses compositions had fallen out of favour in Austria during the reign of Emperor Joseph II, and Mozart composed it during this time. Even the older Joseph Haydn did not compose any orchestral masses between 1782 and 1796.

Of the remainder of the mass, the Credo was never completed, the Sanctus and Benedictus, although complete, subsequently became partially lost, and the Agnus Dei had never been contemplated by Mozart beyond some sketches he made for the Dona nobis pacem. 

Perhaps Mozart's Great Mass's incompleteness rightly symbolizes the failure of its  underlying purposes: to express filial piety (respect to his father), to evidence devotion to religious music in an age of reform, and especially to serve as an emblem of Mozart's reconciliation with his father and sister, conditioned upon their acceptance of his wife, whose worthiness Mozart expressed by the sublimity of the 'Great Mass in C' itself.   



Suggested Listening:

Great Mass in C minor - Kyrie - K. 427- W. A. Mozart - Bernstein - Delacroix. Uploaded by codonauta. Accessed Octoboer 25, 2010. Leonard Bernstein - Conductor. Arleen Auger - Sopran. Frederica von Stade - Mezzo sopran. Frank Lopard - Tenor. Cornelius Hauptmann - Bass. Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Symphonie orchester des Bayerrischen Rundfunks. Pictures: Delacroix

Mozart: Great Mass in C Minor, KV 427 - John Eliot Gardiner. YouTube, Uploaded by Huckleberry Finn.  Accessed October 25, 2014. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Mass in C minor, KV 427 Barbara Bonney, soprano. Anne Sofie von Otter, mezzo-soprano. Anthony Rolfe Johnson, tenor. Alastair Miles, bass. Monteverdi Choir. English Baroque Soloists. John Eliot Gardiner, conductor. Barcelona, December 1991.

Mozart: Mass in C minor Kv. 427: Kyrie (1785). Uploaded by Azael Hernandez. Accessed August 25, 2016. (effectively dismantled and used as a cantata, Davidde Penitente K. 469). Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra & Monteverdi Choir. Conducted by John Eliot Gardiner.

 

Mozart Mass in C minor K.427 Gardiner. YouTube, uploaded by vse vsad. Accessed April 1, 2019. (Monteverdi Choir. Eric Ericson. Chamber Choir. Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. Mia Persson soprano. Ann Hallenberg mezzo-soprano. Helge Rønning tenor. Peter Mattei bass. Nobel Prize Concert 2008.)

Trivia
(Added: April 4, 2019).  For 2019 Easter offering, our Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and the visiting Capella St Crucis from Hannover will fill the Sydney Opera House with the glorious and uplifting sounds of J.S. Bach's Magnificat and Wolfgang A. Mozart's Great Mass in C minor. The concert: "Bach and Mozart: In the Imagination of their Hearts" will be conducted by Florian Lohmann, for Mozart, and Brett Weymark, for Bach. It will also include Anotny Pitts new setting of 'Mente cordis sui' (in the imagination of their hearts), as he takes inspiration from Bach.  Saturday April 20 at 2pm. Sydney Opera House Concert Hall.    


Video Credit:

Mozart - Great Mass in C minor, Nathalie Stutzmann, Conducting.  Accessed August 25, 2017.

Resources:

Bras, Jean-Yves; Bras, Jean-Yves; transl. Derek Yeld (2006). "A Mass of Thanksgiving", p. 31 [CD]. Album notes for Mass in C minor (La Chapelle Royale, Collegium Vocale Gent, Orchestre des Champs-Éllysées, cond. Philippe Herreweghe) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Arles: Harmonia Mundi (HMX 2961393).

Mozart, W. A.; Holl, Monika (preface), Thalmann, Gabriele (transl.) (2006).  Mass in C minor (Urtext). Bärenreiter-Verlag. pp. VII. ISMN M-0006-20223-2

Solomon, Maynard. (1995) Mozart: a Life.  Harper Collins Publishers.



(c) Posted Oct. 25, 2010. Updated Aug. 25, 2017. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

SPC's 2016 Mozart Requiem Concert

Sydney Philharmonia Choirs present:
MOZART REQUIEM
Easter Saturday,  26 March 2016, 2PM
Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House




Don't miss! Book on line Sydney Opera House box office! Drawing on his musical genius and unparalleled understanding of the human voice, with passion and heavenliness, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart produces his last composition as he lays dying. His Requiem is music of profound humanity and splendid beauty.  

Join the charismatic Brett Weymark, Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' Artistic & Music Director,  conduct Mozart's Requiem and an Australian premier from Tavener, with SPC's Symphony Chorus, Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra and fine line of soloists, this Easter Saturday, 26th March 2016, 2PM, Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House. 

Soloists include:

Taryn Fiebig, Soprano
Sian Pendry, Mezzo soprano
Jonathan Abernety, Tenor
Michael Honeyman, Baritone
Shane Lowrencev, Bass

Mozart Requiem in D minor, K.626

Classical Music / Composers Datebook: Dec 5

Wolfgang A. Mozart's last words?  It is not easy to verify the composer's last words, however, he allegedly passed away after saying: "The taste of death is upon my lips...I feel something that is not of this earth". 

Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart
(January 27, 1756 - December 5, 1791)

Since his death in 1791, Wolfgang A. Mozart's Requiem has remained a profound presence in the midst of the world events, both tragic and joyous... although it talks about death as dark, agonizing, and pleading of help, Mozart's requiem is not a depressing work but rather graceful and powerful. 

At the age of 35, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart passes away almost an hour after midnight on December 5, 1791, leaving his last composition, the Requiem Mass in D minor (K, 626), unfinished and completed with the assistance from his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr. This work is one of Mozart's considered masterpieces and most popular works to this day. While ailing and confined to bed, he tirelessly worked on it. (Image: MozartProject.org)

Süssmayr work on completion from the Unfinished Mozart Requiem

The Requiem Mass in D minor, K. 626, was the last composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and was left unfinished at the Austrian composer's untimely demise in Vienna and completed by his devoted pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Under the supervision of Constanze, Mozart's widow, efforts to complete the Requiem began immediately after the composer's death. She contracted a pupil of Mozart, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, to finish the work. Initially, she contracted two composers to work on Requiem's completion: Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Joseph Eybler (1765-1846), was a good musician who later became Hofkapellmeister. He orchestrated the Dies irae as the Lacrimosa. Then he stopped working on it.

The Requiem was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate his wife's death anniversary, February 14.  The Requiem Mass was first performed on January 2, 1793, in a private concert for the benefit of Mozart's grieving wife, Constanze Mozart.

 

 Photo: THE DEATH OF MOZART 

Oil painting by Irish artist Henry O'Neill circa 1870

 

Below video, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D minor K 626 (complete), with Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor · OSESP Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo · Coro Acadêmico e Coro da Osesp · Lisa Larsson, soprano · Wilke te Brummelstroete, mezzo soprano · John Mark Ainsley, tenor · Burak Bilgili, baritone / Recorded at Sala São Paulo, Brazil, 21 November 2013.  Here's a link to another performance conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann: Mozart: Requiem - BBC PROMS 2019, The BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, with Fatma Said, Kathryn Rudge, Sunnyboy Dladla and David Shipley in Mozart's Requiem. YouTube, uploaded by David Durham. Accessed December 6, 2022.

The Requiem is scored for 2 basset horns in F, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones (alto, tenor & bass), timpani (2 drums), violins, viola and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ). The vocal forces include soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass soloists and a mixed choir of standard SATB.

Remembering Wolfgang A. Mozart's Death Anniversary

Classical Music Dateline: December 5

 

Wolfgang A. Mozart's Final Work - Requiem in D

Join Mozartians and Mozart admirers worldwide in celebrating Mozart's 230th death anniversary this year 2021. For our readers' reflective listening pleasure, we share with you his final work - Mozart's Requiem in D. The performance is interpreted by Sir Georg Solti backed up by Wiener Philharmoniker. So melancholy, solemn, and fit to commemorate someone who has immensely delighted us with his music through time.

Requiem aeternam

Kyrie 4:55  

Dies irae 7:20  

Tuba mirum 9:20  

Rex tremendae maiestatis 12:30 

Recordare 14:30 

Confutatis maledictis 19:40 

Lacrimosa 22:00

Domine Jesu Christe 25:17

Hostias et preces tibi 29:10 

Sanctus Dominus Deus 32:43 

Benedictus 34:20

Agnus Dei 38:50  

Lux aeterna 41:35

 

 

Related Articles:

• Mozart's Requiem History
• Mozart Requiem Completed (with Franz Sussmayr)

 

Mozart Requiem conducted by Sir Georg Solti.
Youtube, uploaded by makoan makoani. Accessed 5 Dec 2021. 

 

 

 

(c) December 2013. Updated  December 5, 2021. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved. 

Mozart Requiem Performed on the Bicentenary of his Death

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Mozart's Requiem performance on the bicentenary of his death, 1991.

W. A. Mozart (Jan 27, 1756 - Dec. 5, 1791)

On the bicentenary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's death, December 5, 1991, Vienna hosted a special performance of his Requiem as a liturgical mass, for him as the decedent. It was performed at St. Stephen's Cathedral, where Mozart's wedding and funeral services were held.

Hearing prayers for Mozart in this sacred place which was so central to his life, is absolutely arresting. The soloists, choir and musicians are conducted by Sir Georg Solti, all being of the highest order. The end is not met with the applause we are accustomed to hearing in concert performances, but a recessional of melancholy beauty.

Related Article:   Mozart Requiem Completed   (My apology, the site where I published my article is currently unavailable. / Tel, March 20, 2016.)

Mozart - Requiem - Cecilia Bartoli - George Solti 1991

Video Credit:

Mozart Requiem - Cecilia Bartoli with George Solti conducting.  Accessed Dec 3, 2013.

Post Credit:

Sherry Davis,  The Chronicles of Modern Day Mozartian.

Cousin Marianne: Guardian of Mozart Sacred Works

Mozart's cousin Marianne and his sacred works or How so many Mozart masses came to Augsburg

© by Susanne M. Scholze, Guest Writer-Friend

Wolfgang Amadé Mozart wrote the most wonderful music I can think of. Nowadays, his music can be heard either performed life in concert, or from a CD, privately or through the radio, internet, DVD – however, wherever. Thanks to modern technology it is available at practically any time. I do not know whether all of his known 626 works are currently available on CD, but in this very year 2006, his 250^th anniversary, this might very well be possible. Operas, concertos, divertimenti, arias, chamber music, Lieder, Tänze. And church music. Whatever you wish. This hasn’t been always so. 

During his lifetime, the places where lucky people got to hear, for example, his church music performed were – only churches, of course. At that time, the two churches worldwide that performed his divine music regularly were the Salzburg Cathedral, and the Heilig Kreuz Monastery in Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany. Augsburg? How come? 

Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus

Claassical Music / Sacred Music: Mozart

 

Ave verum corpus (Hail, true body), (K. 618), is a motet in D major composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1791. It is a setting of the Latin hymn Ave verum corpus. Mozart wrote it for Anton Stoll, a friend who was the church musician of St. Stephan in Baden bei Wien. The motet was composed for the feast Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. It is scored for SATB choir, string instruments and organ.

Motet
Motet is one of the significant genres of sacred Renaissance music. It can be defined as an unaccompanied choral composition based on a sacred Latin text. In general, motets used religious texts not in the Mass, as the latter already had standardized music.

Melody:
 

Listen to the beautiful rendition of  Mozart's Ave verum corpus by the King's College Choir, Cambridge.  Uploaded by drwestbury. Accessed August 5, 2007. Another performance Mozart's Ave verum corpus is conducted by Leonard Bernstein with Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. Uploaded by Shostakk, accessed July 13, 2008. A third one I also love listening to is this performance by James O'Donnell, Westminster Cathedral Choir - here. uploaded by Snezhinka9, accessed July 13, 2011.)  

History: 

Mozart composed the motet in 1791 in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflöte. He wrote it while visiting his wife Constanze, who was pregnant with their sixth child and staying in the spa Baden bei Wien. Mozart set the 14th century Eucharistic hymn in Latin "Ave verum corpus". He wrote the motet for Anton Stoll, a friend of his and of Joseph Haydn. Stoll was the musical director of the parish St. Stephan, Baden. The setting was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi; the autograph is dated 17 June 1791. It is only forty-six bars long and is scored for SATB choir, string instruments, and organ. Mozart's manuscript contains minimal directions, with only a single sotto voce marking at the beginning.

The motet was composed less than six months before Mozart's death. It foreshadows "aspects of the Requiem such as declamatory gesture, textures, and integration of forward- and backward-looking stylistic elements". While the Requiem is a dramatic composition, the motet expresses the Eucharistic thoughts with simple means, suited for the church choir in a small town.

Franz Liszt quotes Mozart's motet in the piano piece Evocation à la Chapelle Sixtine. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky incorporates an orchestration of Liszt's transcription in his fourth orchestral suite, Mozartiana, Op. 61.

Trivia: 

Along with Mozart's Requiem, film composer Hans Zimmer also used Wolfgang Mozart's Ave verum corpus motet in the movie, The Lion King. (Accessed from Youtube, August 8, 2011).

Interesting article: Inside the Mind (and Studio) of Hollywood's Music Maestro. Buzzfeed. Accessed August 5, 2014.  "There are loads of art books and a small library of classical composers. There's a framed copy of Mozart's "Ave Verum Corpus," which Zimmer calls "the perfect piece of music." The room is basically engineered for creativity." 


 
Resource:

Ave verum corpus by Wolfgang A Mozart. en.wikipedia.org.  Accessed August 5, 2007.


(c) July 2007. Updated August 5, 2011. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.