I think one perceptible evolution in my study habits and interests over the last few years has been that I\u2019ve gotten more and more interested in quotation in music.<\/p>\n
Of course, I suppose I may be putting my neck on the block a bit admitting that, because implicit in the statement is the notion that at somepoint in the past I wasn\u2019t as interested in quotation as I should have been. Perhaps as this blog hits cyberspace, smug conductors and musicologists around the world are stroking their black moustaches, muttering \u201cSee- Woods has just discovered quotation. I always had him pegged for a fraud!\u201d<\/p>\n
So, maybe I should make clear that I\u2019m just finding more success and satisfaction studying with an eye and ear for quotation than in the past.<\/p>\n
Anyway, on a purely practical level, knowing all the quotes in a piece of music for a conductor is a bit like loading a weapon that can never be fired. To put it in more practical terms: nothing is more likely to make an orchestra start rolling their eyes in rehearsal than some conductor telling them \u201cthis passage is a quote from the St Matthew Passion, but upside down and backwards in a bi-tonal context.\u201d If you\u2019re lucky, you might get off with a \u201cah Maestro, I see you read the program notes from the Bernstein recording too.\u201d If you\u2019re unlucky, they\u2019ll just silently judge you.<\/p>\n
Some quotes are too cool to keep to yourself- if you really think a quote is so killer, so awesome so amazing, that it\u2019s worth risking the eye-rolls, then you\u2019ve got to do what you\u2019ve got to do. I told an orchestra the other night about the B-A-C-H quotes in Schumann 2. I hope the damage is not permanent- they took it pretty well. I even got an \u201coh- cool\u201d from a violinist (who I won\u2019t betray by identifying her\u00a0in print).<\/p>\n
Anyway, quotes are much on my mind, as the Mozart Requiem is full of quotations and references. The main \u201cRequiem\u201d theme, the DNA of which permeates the entire work, is, in fact, a quote. This melody (d-c#-d-e-f) is from a Lutheran hymn, \u201cWhen My Final Hour is At Hand.\u201d If you\u2019re trying to figure out how much truth there is to the stories of Mozart\u2019s reportedly saying that he was writing \u201cmy own Requiem,\u201d the fact that the main theme of the entire\u00a0piece is attached to the words \u201cMy Final Hour\u201d rather than his, hers, ours or theirs is worth knowing.<\/p>\n
Then, figure in the fact that Mozart was not the first to use that theme- Handel\u2019s \u201cThe Way\u2019s of Zion do Mourn\u201d (which you can hear a short excerpt of here<\/a>), written 54 years earlier. Mozart knew his Handel- he even made his own performing version of Messiah. Handel\u2019s text (all taken from Lamentations) depicts a whole world overcome with sadness- \u201cThe ways of <\/span>Zion<\/span> do mourn and she is in bitterness; all her people sigh and hang down their heads to the ground.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n So, in this opening, Mozart is already combing the personal with the universal- the terror of the one facing \u201cmy final hour\u201d with the grief of the nation in the face of incalculable loss. <\/span><\/p>\n I can still remember hearing this piece for the first time- it is one of the earliest musical memories of my childhood. This very opening appeared in a dramatization of Mozart\u2019s life for radio I heard when I was about 5. I remember thinking it was the saddest music I\u2019d ever heard. I still feel that way- knowing where Mozart took his building blocks from doesn\u2019t change my understanding of or reaction to the music. Sad music sounds sad<\/strong>– you don\u2019t need an owner\u2019s manual to understand it. <\/span><\/p>\n But, I now think I could feel, even as a na\u00efve child hearing the piece for the first time, the presence of these quotes and these levels of meaning. This is the mystery of music- piece affects you with of all the layers of meaning in contains, whether you have the knowledge or experience to identify them or not. This theme permeates and its extrapolations, derivations and evolutions permeate the entire Requiem (including the movements supposedly written by Sussmayr). That it is not simply the notes d-c#-d-e-f but a hymn with a text and a history means that when Mozart when Mozart brings it back in the last 5 bars of the Lacrimosa as the last melodic idea of the first half of the Requiem (don\u2019t tell me that was Sussmayr\u2019s idea) he\u2019s not merely creating a kind of thematic unity, but something deeper and more personal.<\/span><\/p>\n In fact, the other main melodic idea of the first movement, first heard in the soprano solo in bar 21 (\u201cTe decet hymnus Deus in Zion\u201d) is also a quote. This melody (d-f-d-d-eb<\/em>-d-c-bb<\/em>) also has a history. It is another Lutheran hymn \u201cMeine seele erhebet den Herren\u201d or \u201cMy soul doth magnify the Lord.\u201d Bach used this melody, also called the German Magnificat<\/a>, in his Cantata BWV 10, which shares the same title, but it also appears in several other Bach works. The history of this hymn goes all the way back to Gregorian chant and a family of chants known as \u201cPilgrim\u2019s tones.\u201d How appropriate then that when the chorus takes up this melody in bar 27 (when the sopranos sing \u201cEx audie orationem meam\u201d), Mozart sets the text as a perfect imitation of a Bach-ian chorale prelude. I\u2019ve even considered using a childrens chorus to double the women here for that very reason. <\/span><\/p>\n On top of this, Mozart was NOT the first composer to use this hymn for the \u201cTe decet..\u201d (the Latin here means \u201cA hymn, O God, beckoneth Thee in Zion, And a vow shall be made to Thee in Jerusalem- \u201cHear My Payer\u2026\u201d). Michael Haydn did so in his Requiem, which Mozart sang as a chorister in his youth. You can hear the excerpt here<\/a>. Haydn’s treatment is freer, but it’s definitely the same material.\u00a0What does it mean? Is it a simple shout out to a fellow-Requiem master, a short-cut from a composer who was desperate to meet a deadline? I don\u2019t think so, but to guess at the motivations of a genius like Mozart is foolish. All I can say with certainty is that there is more here than meets the eye, or the ear. <\/span><\/p>\n But, I won\u2019t be telling the band this next week. Can’t face the eye rolls.\u00a0That\u2019s why I\u2019ve got this blog. <\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n