NOSPR / Prague Philharmonic Choir / Arming / Mozart's Requiem / Music in the Age of Narratives - NOSPR

A well-told story is more compelling than the truth. We are more inclined to believe it, dismissing the truth as either too complex or insufficiently engaging. We frequently understand little of the broader context surrounding musical works, while those works themselves acquire layers of narrative and association. Mozart’s Requiem is perhaps the finest example here: for many listeners, it is the only Requiem they know. The history of the genre itself hardly stands a chance against tales of a mysterious stranger commissioning the piece, Mozart supposedly working himself to death over it, and the Italian composer Salieri plotting to murder Wolfgang and steal the credit for himself.

Anyone determined to get to the bottom of things can sift half-truths from inventions and uncover the history of the Requiem, completed after Mozart’s death by composers who had known him. Such an insatiable inquirer may discover that the commission came from Count Franz von Walsegg, a man notorious for attaching his own name to works he had merely purchased. They can even identify which parts Mozart actually wrote himself. But will this knowledge improve their appreciation of the work? Or will it rob the piece of its magic? The decision rests with the listener.

What serves as a treatise on ‘music within music’ and on the layering of narratives that echoes throughout this programme is Luciano Berio’s Sinfonia. Fascinated by that remarkable twentieth-century masterpiece, the American composer Jacob Druckman decided to adopt Berio’s method and superimpose his own music on passages from operas by Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Francesco Cavalli, and Luigi Cherubini. In doing so, Druckman reflects on stories told through other stories, on the recurrence and immortality of myth. Such things, it seems, can indeed be conveyed through sound alone.

Adam Suprynowicz (Polskie Radio)

Concert duration (intermission included): approximately 100 minutes

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