This concert is dedicated to the memory of John Stewart Wroe.  Stew was a valued member in the tenor section of the Chorale from its inception as the Marcellus Chorale in 1965, until he and his wife, Sally, left this area in 1995. Stew designed the original logo for Marcellus Chorale and frequently served on the Board of Directors. We remember him with gratitude and affection for all his contributions to the Chorale. These performances are supported in part with public funds from the NYS Council on the Arts decentralization program, which is administered locally by the Finger Lakes Arts Council. The Saturday performance is partially funded by a grant from the Auburn City Council from their Arts and Cultural Funding.

Concert Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Requiem Mass in D minor (unfinished), K626, (1791)

The Requiem Mass
"Requiem" is the common name for Missa pro defunctis, the Mass for the Dead, the name being derived from the first line of the Mass, "Requiem aeternam dona eis (Rest eternal grant to them)". The term is often applied to other services, masses, musical works or ceremonies performed in honor of the departed. The text of the Requiem Mass differs from the normal Mass in the inclusion of the Dies irae (Day of Wrath), while omitting the Gloria and the Credo. (Text of the Requiem)

A Secret Contract and Multiple Composers
In July 1791, Mozart began the Requiem on commission from Count Walsegg-Stuppach, who wanted the Requiem to honor his recently deceased wife. The Count often commissioned great composers secretly, in order to quiz his court musicians, and in some cases, to represent the works as his own. It seems probable that the Count intended to claim authorship of the Requiem, as Mozart was sworn to secrecy about their contract.

Unfortunately, Mozart died on December 5, 1791, before the Requiem could be completed. He had composed the voice parts, bass and orchestration of the early movements - the voice parts and bass of the Domine Jesu and Hostias, and the first eight bars of the vocal parts to the Lacrymosa. His death left his widow Constanze with the responsibility of delivering a completed score or returning the commission fee of 50 ducats. Since she and Wolfgang had been financially distressed for years, she decided to engage Joseph Leopold Eybler, a student of Mozart's, to complete the task. After Eybler failed to deliver, Mozart's friend and favorite pupil, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, finally recopied the completed portions and added the remaining movements. How much of the music is truly Süssmayr's is purely conjecture because during Mozart's illness Eybler visited the house frequently to discuss the progress of the project and sight-read vocal ideas with the composer.


The Mozart Requiem Hyperbole
When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna in 1791, not having reached his thirty-sixth birthday, he left to the world a catalogue of works, which in size, variety and mastery is the most prodigious in musical history. Starting at the age of five, in thirty years Mozart had composed forty-one symphonies, twenty-one operas, and hundreds of instrumental and choral pieces. Ludwig von Köchel's catalogue of Mozart's works lists over six hundred compositions, granting the final Köchel number, K626, to Mozart's final masterpiece, the Requiem.


Mozart's astounding accomplishments require no embellishment. Nevertheless, Mozart's rapid deterioration and death while composing the Requiem is the subject of many fabulous accounts of his final days. It is true that Mozart was commissioned in secret to write the Requiem. The story that Mozart spent his last hours providing the alto while three friends helped him develop a quartet for the Requiem is possibly true, but is unlikely and without basis. Equally lacking in substance is the theory that Mozart was poisoned by his professional rival, Antonio Salieri. The frequently repeated account of Mozart's body being unceremoniously thrown without proper funeral in a mass grave of Viennese peasants is known to be false. 

One source for these tales was Mozart's widow, Constanze, who, to collect the remainder of the fee from Count Walsegg, certainly misrepresented the degree of completion of the Requiem. Constanze's assertion that the work was near completion when Mozart died was quite inaccurate, but the claim lent credence to the accounts of Mozart frantically composing just before breathing his last. Vienna, shocked by the sudden death of the composer whose "Magic Flute" was currently playing to delighted audiences, probably provided the "human interest" speculation that turned Mozart's funeral at St. Michael's and his burial in a small grave with a wooden marker into the story of an unceremonious interment in a mass grave. As a final speculation, consider again Constanze, who, after Mozart's death, toured Europe with her sisters, singing Mozart's works. Constanze died in 1842, having survived the Maestro by fifty years! She was a singer and a performer and the widow of the great Mozart during the peak of the Classical Era in music. If Constanze had chosen to offer a less dramatic account of Mozart's death, she would have been believed, but human interest sold in the 18th and 19th centuries, as it does today.

Another enduring but unsubstantiated tale is that Mozart confided to friends that he was composing a requiem to his own death and memory. Whether Mozart stated such an intention is a matter of conjecture; the story could be true, given the circumstances of Mozart's last days. It is beyond question however, that Mozart's genius, the dedication of his friends and students, and the passion of two centuries of audiences have made the Mozart Requiem just that; a memorial requiem to Mozart himself. - Andrew Hadley

Conductor's Note: Another Mozart
As the Marcellus Chorale, we performed today's masterwork in 1983 at the First Presbyterian Church in Skaneateles with organ accompaniment supplemented by a few string players and a handful of winds in the choir loft. The strings were far from a full complement and there was no room for percussion! Even if there had been room, our local community simply didn't have the resources (the instrumentalists) to outfit a full orchestra! I remember we relied heavily upon organ accompaniment, although it had been worked on recently and was not fully functional. Nevertheless, the orchestra shortfalls were outweighed with an enthusiastic, strong body of singers.

In recent years I've heard the comment, "Isn't it time for a Mozart
Requiem?", repeated over and over again from the community at large. I finally asked the chorale membership how many people had sung or had attended that performance or had at least had sung the Requiem at some other point in their lives. Less than half of the membership answered positively. I knew "it was time" to revisit this great pillar in the literature.

It seems especially fitting to be revisiting this masterwork in our first combined concert with Auburn Chamber Orchestra. The players and singers for today's performance draw from all over Central New York! This project truly exemplifies the wonderful support throughout our artistic community. - Maureen McCauley


George Frederic Handel (1685-1759)
Concerto for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 4, No. 1 (1738)

Handel's early music career began in Hamburg, Germany, as a director of opera. After becoming well known as both a composer and performer, he moved to Italy, the most famous birthplace of operatic form and style. From Italy he journeyed to England, still working mainly in the business of Italian opera, but gradually creating compositions better suited to English taste - oratorios.

Oratorios used the Italian opera model with secular or sacred texts, but in English. Although there was little or no movement on stage, costumes and props were frequently used by the soloists. There were scenes or acts structured upon narratives loosely based upon biblical verses or allegory. English audiences found this a wonderfully entertaining alternative to Italian Opera. The most well-known of these popular oratorios is still performed today, "Messiah".

A significant difference between traditional opera and oratorio presentations was an insertion of musical interludes between the sections of the oratorios (opera had no musical insertions). Although oratorios are not performed with those musical interludes today, the six concerti that comprise Handel's Opus 4 were originally conceived for just that purpose! Often the conductors (typically the keyboard continuo players) capitalized on these performances displaying their virtuoso skills.

The Organ Concerto, Opus 4, No.1 was first performed at the premier of the well-known oratorio, "Alexander's Feast" in London's Covent Garden Theater on February 19, 1736, with the composer/conductor, George Frederic Handel, at the keyboard.

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