Join us on Sunday, Sept. 8 at 1 p.m. on WRTI 90.1, and Monday, Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. on WRTI HD-2 when the Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert series brings you a program of Mozart and Schumann from the 2023/2024 season. Principal guest conductor Nathalie Stutzmann leads Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 in D Minor. After intermission, the orchestra is joined by the Philadelphia Symphonic Choir and four superb soloists for Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s unfinished masterwork, the Requiem in D Minor, as completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.
In its original form, Schumann’s Symphony in D Minor was a product of the year 1841, the year in which the composer made a firm resolution to get comfortable with writing orchestral music. By this time, Schumann had established a composing pattern of intense attention to a particular form for a period of time. A pianist, he first wrote for solo piano throughout the 1830s. Thereafter he altered his focus annually. 1840 was his “year of song,” with love poetry a major preoccupation. Not coincidentally, this was also the year he married his beloved Clara Wieck. With her encouragement, Schumann then made a serious study of orchestration and the construction of large-scale musical forms.
He set to work on his First Symphony as 1841 dawned. It came together quickly and premiered successfully in March of that year. Encouraged, he embarked on two other orchestral efforts: a three-movement suite and a Symphonic Fantasy in D Minor. These two works premiered at the end of the year, but with less success, and Schumann turned away from symphonic works for a while. He took up other forms — chamber music in 1842, and later still, dramatic works. After a decade, though, Schumann returned to the Symphonic Fantasy and made significant revisions. By 1853 he was ready to present it to the world. He conducted a well-received performance, and published it as his Symphony No. 4 in D Minor. Conductor Nathalie Stutzmann comments on the “dark atmosphere” that prevails in this symphony, and it makes an appropriate pairing for Mozart’s late Requiem in the same key.
Mozart set the Latin text of the Mass for the Dead in the last months of his life. In the summer and fall of 1791, he faced a daunting schedule. With growing money troubles, the 35-year-old composer was in no position to turn down work. He had taken a post as assistant musical director of St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and was putting the final touches on two ambitious operas. After conducting both premieres within a few weeks of each other, he then set to work on his Clarinet Concerto. In the midst of all this activity, he also started to write a Requiem Mass, commissioned by an eccentric nobleman who offered a handsome advance.
Mozart devoted himself fully to this ambitious project as soon as the operas and concerto were safely behind him. By this time, though, he was exhausted and ill. In fact he had less than two months to live, and despite the urgency of completing the Requiem, he seemed to sense he wouldn’t manage it. He started advising his 25-year-old student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, on how to finish the work. Mozart did fully score the two opening movements — the somber Requiem aeternam and the Kyrie, with its powerful double fugue. He drafted the Offertory in detail, as well nearly all of the Dies Irae sequence, and gave careful instructions to Süssmayr on how to orchestrate these movements. No sketches survive for the remaining portions of the mass, but it’s thought that Süssmayr was working at least in part from Mozart’s ideas as he produced the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. That left the final movement, the Communion… and here Süssmayr recycled the music Mozart had completed for the beginning of the Requiem, nearly note for note. It makes for a powerful conclusion.
PROGRAM:
Schumann: Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120
Mozart: Requiem in D Minor, K. 626
The Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Symphonic Choir
Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor
Erin Morley, soprano
Sara Mingardo, mezzo-soprano
Kenneth Tarver, tenor
Harold Wilson, bass
WRTI PRODUCTION TEAM:
Melinda Whiting: Host
Alex Ariff: Senior Producer
Joseph Patti: Broadcast Engineer
Listen to The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcasts, every Sunday at 1 PM on WRTI 90.1, streaming at WRTI.org, on the WRTI mobile app, and on your favorite smart speaker. Listen again on Mondays at 7 PM on WRTI HD-2. Listen for up to two weeks after broadcast on WRTI Replay.
