Our spring season programme features orchestral and sacred choral music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
The programme:
Mozart: Requiem
Divertimento in D
Laudate Dominum
Te Deum
Generally accepted as the standard for choral music of the classical period, Mozart’s Requiem is at the heart of this programme. Newbury Choral Society first performed it in 1916, conducted by our founding musical director, J.S. Liddle.
Controversy and intrigue surround the Requiem: Mozart was working on it the day he died, leaving it unfinished, but a completed manuscript, apparently with his signature, was delivered within a year to the nobleman who had commissioned it. This version, finished by Süssmayr, is one of many but the most often performed. Its authenticity may be the most important thing to musicologists, but audiences are drawn to every performance by its enduring appeal.
Mozart's only Te Deum, K141, was probably composed in Salzburg at the end of 1769 and is modelled almost exactly on Michael Haydn's Te Deum of 1760. It is written in three movements (no break). 1. Te Deum laudamus & Te ergo quæsumus. 2. Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis. 3. In te, Domine, speravi.
Laudate Dominum is the 5th movement of Mozart’s Vesperae solennes de confessore and uses the text of psalm 117. This well known movement is often performed in isolation.
The evening’s orchestral work is Mozart’s Divertimento, K. 136, composed during down-time in Salzburg in the winter of 1772. This divertimento is in three movements, fast-slow-fast after the manner of the Italian sinfonia.
We are looking forward to performing these works on Saturday 13th April and would love you to be there to share a wonderful evening of Mozart’s music.
