2018, Term , Week 2: More Mozart

     FREE CONCERT 

3 pm, SATURDAY, AUGUST 4 

at Vodafone Events Centre, 

MANUKAU 

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Background music  to visual presentations (movies / slideshows, and so on) can create a significant atmosphere and arouse a range of emotions depending. 

New Zealand film maker Peter Jackson restored rare film footage from Gallipoli to make this short tribute to the ANZAC soldiers. The film footage was rare because it was in the very early days of moving pictures, and it was incredibly difficult - and extremely dangerous - to film anything at all in the middle of a war zone, and then get it back to safety to be developed.

The background music is Mozart's Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626). It was composed in Vienna in 1791. It was still unfinished at the time of Mozart's death on December 5. A requiem is a special church service (called a mass) with special music to remember people who have died.
View a bit of this movie filmed in Gallipoli in 1915, and turn the sound off.  Then watch it with the volume up, and listen to Mozart's Lacrimosa from his requiem. Do you notice a difference?  Did the music change how you felt about what you were seeing.  (Note: stop the video at 2:50). 

Most religious music was written in Latin. If you listen carefully, you can follow the words as they are sung. Can you hear where the words are repeated?

Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa dies illaQua resurget ex favillaJudicandus homo reus.Huic ergo parce, Deus:Pie Jesu Domine,Dona eis requiem. Amen.

(translated from Latin)
Full of tears shall be that dayOn which from ashes shall ariseThe guilty man to be judged;Therefore, O God, have mercy on him.Gentle Lord Jesus,grant them eternal rest. Amen.

Some questions to think about while listening:
- Why do you think Peter Jackson chose this particular music to go with the film?- What is it about the music that you like or dislike?
- What does Mozart do to make the music sound more interesting?- Can you hear the sopranos singing the very high parts?- Can you hear the basses sing the very lowest parts?- Can you hear parts where just one group (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) is singing, or different combinations of those groups?
- Where are the crescendos and decrescendos?

                                 

This is Mozart's own writing of part of the requiem.

On November 20,1791, Mozart was so ill he had to stay in bed. Even so, he still worked frantically on the requiem - right up until his final hours.

At 2pm on December 4, Mozart sang the alto parts of the requiem with his friends and family singing the other parts. They sang through to the Lacrimosa which was as far as Mozart had got composing the requiem. Apparently the last thing Mozart did was to imitate the kettledrums in his requiem.

Because his illness, Mozart’s body was very swollen, so a doctor cut him regularly so he would bleed ( it was thought to be help lessen the swelling in those days). Mozart died shortly afterwards at 1:00 am on December 5 1791.

An artist's impression of what it looked like while he was working on his requiem.              

Because they were very poor, he was buried in an unmarked paupers’ grave ( grave for poor people). When his wife went back with flowers a few days later, she could not find his grave, so it remains a mystery where one of the greatest composers is buried.

It is thought that Mozart’s wife, Constanza, got several people to help finish the requiem, using notes and drafts left by Mozart, so that she could still get paid the rest of the money from the mystery person who commissioned the requiem.

An artist's impression of Mozart and his wife Constanze as he wrote his requiem.                     

Here's a movie interpretation of Mozart's death and burial  from the movie Amadeus - with Lacrimosa playing as background music.