January 22, 2012 - Epiphany 3

Fantasie in d minor KV 397 - W.A. Mozart
De Profundis KV 93
God Is Our Refuge KV 20
Fantasie in f minor KV 608

Hymns: LEVAS#14 Soon and Very Soon, #469 St. Helena, #533 Lyons

This week's music is all Mozart for no reason other than the anthems that best fit the text for the day both happened to have settings by him and the opening hymn necessitated the use of the piano so I decided on a piano prelude. The prelude this week is Mozart's Fantasie in d minor KV 397. I am only playing the first section (in minor). This piece opens with arpeggios and then goes into a much more measured theme. This piece captures a great deal of emotion and has quite a bit of contrast. The theme in the right hand is played above throbbing chords in the left hand which breaks way to an obsessive repeated note. After this a much more agitated theme comes in leading to a "grand pause" before the return of the first theme in a new key. A fast scalar figure is then introduced which serves as bookends to the "agitated" second theme. The first theme returns again this time in the original key and through a deceptive cadence moves to the second part of the piece (not heard on Sunday) in a major key.

The postlude is one of only three solo organ works written by Mozart. Late in his life Mozart underwent much financial difficulty and was forced to accept commissions which were less then artistically fulfilling. These pieces were not composed for the organ in the way that traditionally think of it but instead for the mechanical organ in the Muller Exhibition Hall and Mausoleum. Mozart is said to have hated the small pipes of this organ which caused everything to be high and shrill. The work - despite the medium it was composed for is one of Mozart's best. The fugue in it is very sophisticated and rivals that of the Jupiter symphony. There are musicians who feel this piece cannot be played by human organists because it was designed for a machine which could execute the technical demands of the piece perfectly. There are also versions of this for piano four-hands and more recently for orchestra.

The two choral works for Sunday are both by Mozart - sort of. The first De Profundis (Psalm 129) may not be written by Mozart at all but instead by Carl Georg Reutter (1708-1772) a court composer at the Habsburg court in Vienna. The British Museum has a copy of the score in Mozart's hand dated 1771 but recent scholarship has shown that the music in the British Museum may just be a copy of the continuo part for the Reutter piece and a result of Mozart studying the traditions of church music in Vienna at the time. The communion anthem God is our Refuge was written by Mozart at age 9. It is his earliest surviving piece of vocal music and the only time he ever set an English text. It is possible that this piece was based on a suggested melody. Some of the piece is written in Mozart's hand but apparently his father Leopold stepped in to help his son with  some wandering bar lines.