Mozart Vespers
For the Archbishop of Salzburg’s young court organist, the regular composing of religious music was an unwelcome though necessary chore. The 24 year old Mozart would rather have been composing operas or instrumental music for the secular and increasingly enlightened world beyond the austere cathedral’s walls. Most of the liturgical music he wrote during his two year stay there would be unlikely to find its way into anybody’s Hundred Best Tunes.
But his very last Salzburg liturgical work is a brilliant exception. The Vesperae solennes de Confessore (Solemn Vespers) K339 is a masterpiece, exhibiting the quality of his later great religious works, the Mass in C and the Requiem.
Vespers is the sunset evening prayer service in the Western Catholic, Eastern (Byzantine) Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, and Lutheran liturgies of the canonical hours. The work comprises five musical setting of psalms followed by a Magnificat. They are written in a variety of keys and musical styles.
Perhaps the most magical moment comes when, after the fourth movement, an ‘old-style’ contrapuntal setting of Psalm 113 (Laudate pueri), the key abruptly changes from D minor to F major and we are suddenly wallowing in a sublimely luscious setting of Psalm 117 (Laudate Dominum) for soprano solo with choir accompaniment. This piece alone was so popular in the nineteenth century that it suffered all kinds of popular arrangements for different combinations of instruments and voices. This is definitely one of my hundred best Tunes.
Paul Chamberlain
Paul Chamberlain is a Lancastrian organist, conductor, composer and singer. As a conductor he is currently musical director of Wigan Choral Society. As a singer he regularly sings as a bass/baritone soloist with local societies and those further afield. As a composer he writes songs and music for choirs, orchestra and the theatre. He says he always wanted to write a requiem, and in 2016 he did: the work we are performing in this concert.
MK