Bringing the Mozart love, yo.
May. 24th, 2004 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamajoanDr. Robert Levin, an internationally-renowned Mozart scholar, gave a talk to my choir at our rehearsal last Saturday. :) His version of the Mozart Requiem is slowly gaining acceptance as a more definitive version than the commonly-performed (and reviled) Sussmayer version.
Mozart died without having finished the Requiem, and, desperate for money, his widow Constanze took it to several people who had known him, asking them to finish it. At least one person wrote some stuff on Mozart's original score but then gave up. Sussmayer, the guy who did complete it for Constanze, was more a clerk than a musician, and he apparently ignored a lot of the scraps of paper that Constanze had given him with scribblings in Mozart's handwriting. He did finish the piece and forged Mozart's name on the front, and for many years it was accepted as the definitive version, until finally Sussmayer fessed up about what he had done. So ever since then, for almost two hundred years, there has been a ton of controversy over what Mozart actually wrote, what he intended to write, what should have been done with the scraps of notation, who wrote the other stuff in the Sussmayer version, etc.
Then, in the late 1980s, Robert Levin was asked to do a new completion of the piece, and at first he refused, but finally he agreed. The result was the version of the Requiem that my chorus is performing next weekend at Harvard University (where Dr. Levin teaches). We are very hopeful that he'll be able to come to our concert! That would rule.
Anyway, he spoke to us on Saturday like I said, and it was really fascinating. I already knew a bit about Mozart and the history of this piece, but obviously Dr. Levin knows way more than little ole me, and he's a great speaker as well. Not everyone in our chorus is very knowledgeable about music in general, and he did a really good job of making the whole story understandable without "talking down" to us. He really seemed to enjoy being there and after his talk he chatted with a bunch of us and autographed our scores. It was pretty cool.
Other people on my friend-list are squeeing about Daniel Radcliffe and Orlando Bloom, and here's me hero-worshipping a 50-something musicologist you never heard of. Yep, that's the sound of my own drum I hear. March on!
Mozart died without having finished the Requiem, and, desperate for money, his widow Constanze took it to several people who had known him, asking them to finish it. At least one person wrote some stuff on Mozart's original score but then gave up. Sussmayer, the guy who did complete it for Constanze, was more a clerk than a musician, and he apparently ignored a lot of the scraps of paper that Constanze had given him with scribblings in Mozart's handwriting. He did finish the piece and forged Mozart's name on the front, and for many years it was accepted as the definitive version, until finally Sussmayer fessed up about what he had done. So ever since then, for almost two hundred years, there has been a ton of controversy over what Mozart actually wrote, what he intended to write, what should have been done with the scraps of notation, who wrote the other stuff in the Sussmayer version, etc.
Then, in the late 1980s, Robert Levin was asked to do a new completion of the piece, and at first he refused, but finally he agreed. The result was the version of the Requiem that my chorus is performing next weekend at Harvard University (where Dr. Levin teaches). We are very hopeful that he'll be able to come to our concert! That would rule.
Anyway, he spoke to us on Saturday like I said, and it was really fascinating. I already knew a bit about Mozart and the history of this piece, but obviously Dr. Levin knows way more than little ole me, and he's a great speaker as well. Not everyone in our chorus is very knowledgeable about music in general, and he did a really good job of making the whole story understandable without "talking down" to us. He really seemed to enjoy being there and after his talk he chatted with a bunch of us and autographed our scores. It was pretty cool.
Other people on my friend-list are squeeing about Daniel Radcliffe and Orlando Bloom, and here's me hero-worshipping a 50-something musicologist you never heard of. Yep, that's the sound of my own drum I hear. March on!
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no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 08:06 am (UTC)I think that's utterly fabulous. :-D
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Date: 2004-05-24 08:07 am (UTC)Seriously, it does sound interesting.
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Date: 2004-05-24 08:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-24 08:53 am (UTC)I think he's going to be a heartbreaker when he grows up. But for now, he is severely underaged, and I fear I am old and stodgy, too.
*tosses him back for another three years at least*
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Date: 2004-05-24 09:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-25 09:57 am (UTC)I get a similar feeling when I try to discuss with my co-works my fascination of Colonial House on PBS, and all they want to talk about is American Idol, Road Rules and Survivor.
Meh.
On another note - if I were 14, I would certainly get all squinchy about Mr. Radcliffe. However, as I am not, I am content to think that he would certainly be a fun teenager to hang out with - in a completely plutonic sort of way.