Program Notes, Masterworks IV, Mozart and More, Performance March 18, 2006, By: Donald P. Jenkins

Some years back Thomas Hoving, the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, said it didn’t matter what works were exhibited next to one another, regardless of style, size, period or intent, what mattered was that each be truly great, of equal intensity and capable of holding its own space. They need not have anything else in common.

Our selection of four Masterworks this evening, ranging from secular to sacred, from despairing to affirmative, subscribes to Hoving’s requirements, as each is a distinctive masterpiece second to none in its perfection. The difference here is that these disparate works are selected for their relationship to one another, and their progressive movement in sequence from terror and tragedy to transformation and understanding. They are presented tonight in that order.

Haydn’s Der Sturm, (The Storm, The Tempest), is a vivid description of a terrifying storm followed by an intimate plea for calm. Though a “Classical” composition written in 1792, it heralds early Romanticism in depicting nature’s extreme wildness, while ending with a lovely classically balanced “deliverance”.

Brahms’ Schicksalslied, op. 54 (Fate’s Song, Destiny’s Song, 1868), presents the Gods’ Fate as sheltered, contented in eternal light and ease, while humanity’s Fate is turmoil and, at the last, thrown into the Abyss of the Unknown. This pessimistic text is based on the great German Romantic poet Frederick Holderlin’s novel, Hyperion’s Schicksalslied (1798), inspired in turn by an early lost love, a loss from which the poet never recovered. Brahms wished not to end in such bleakness, however. Having represented the two contrasting Fates, he faced an impasse at the work’s conclusion. His solution was to restate the opening orchestral E Major prelude, (the elevated “gods’ key”), as an orchestral postlude transposed to C Major, (the lower earthly “human key”). Perhaps in doing so he intended a transforming awareness of tragedy, and the resolve to carry forward even in sadness. Being a “neo-classicist”, perhaps Brahms sought reconciliation and a balance of sorts, certainly something the poet did not intend. The composer remained ill at ease with his ending for many years, but it seems to this writer that his resolution is fitting and admirable for his day, and for ours, as well.

Vaughan Williams’ Serenade to Music, on a text from Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice, V, i, is a benevolent and luxurious depiction of “nature” as metaphor for music’s transcendence apparent in its “touches of sweet harmony”, as well as the discovery that “such harmony is in immortal souls”. A warning emerges, though – “Those not mov’d with concord of sweet sounds (are) fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils… let no such man be trusted”. The work closes as it began with a tranquil affirmative evocation of serenity and peace – low voices embraced by gentle strings.

Mozart’s Grand Mass in C Minor is a festive and majestic work composed to celebrate the composer’s wedding in August, 1782. The Mass remained incomplete, though, for reasons unknown, the Kyrie, Gloria, and first part of the Credo are intact, as is the Sanctus and Benedictus. While the climactic and substantial second half of the Credo, and all of the Agnus Dei are missing, the work nevertheless exists musically as a complete and satisfying whole, ending with an impressive and irrepressible double chorus (two separate choirs) singing a resounding “Osanna!” Of special note is the sublime soprano aria, “Et Incarnatus Est”, wherein the soul appears to rise heavenward detached from earthly existence. Had the work been completed, its surviving architecture implies a huge structure approaching the length and depth of J. S, Bach’s Mass in B Minor. Only the Bach plus Beethoven’s Missa Solemness rival Mozart’s Grand Mass for the profound joy of the musical, textual, and spiritual understanding.