Release Date: 10 January 2005
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313272822
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: MOZART
Description
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)Requiem in D minor, K. 626Born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of a leading courtmusician, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, through theindulgence of his father Leopold's employer, theArchbishop of Salzburg, was able to amaze audiencesthroughout Europe as an infant prodigy. Adolescenceand early manhood proved less satisfactory. Salzburg,under a new Archbishop from 1772, seemed to havelittle to offer, although it did provide an element ofsecurity for the family. Leopold Mozart, now Vice-Kapellmeister, had largely sacrificed his own career as acomposer to that of his son, but prudence kept him inSalzburg. Mozart, however, first tried to seek his fortuneelsewhere in 1777, when, having secured his dismissalfrom the court musical establishment, he travelled toMannheim and to Paris, hoping to find a position thatwould provide scope for his genius. Unsuccessful in hisquest, he returned reluctantly to Salzburg, where hisfather had arranged his reinstatement in the service ofthe Archbishop. It was largely through connectionsmade at Mannheim that he received a request for anopera to be mounted in Munich, where the Elector nowhad his seat. Idomeneo, re di Creta was successful thereearly in 1781, but immediately afterwards Mozart wastold to join the entourage of the Archbishop of Salzburgin Vienna. Here Mozart's impatience and feeling offrustration led to a break with his patron and a finalperiod of precarious independence in Vienna, withoutthe security of Salzburg or the immediate prudent adviceof his father. At first things seemed to go well. Withoutseeking his father's approval, he married one of thedowerless daughters of a jobbing Mannheim musician,but made a name for himself as a composer andperformer. Nevertheless his earnings never seemedcommensurate with his expenses, so that by the end ofthe decade he found himself constantly obliged toborrow money.In 1791 it seemed that Mozart's luck was turning.Although the succession of a new Emperor after thedeath of Joseph II lost him his minor court position as acomposer of dance music, he was appointed, in May,unpaid assistant to the Kapellmeister at St Stephen'sCathedral in Vienna, with right of succession to theaging incumbent. Together with the actor-managerEmanuel Schikaneder he was busy with a new Germanopera, Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute), to bemounted in the autumn, while Prague had commissionedfrom him a coronation opera, La clemenza di Tito (TheClemency of Titus), a work staged there in September,to the expressed contempt of the new Emperor's wife.Mozart's wife Constanze was later to claim that herhusband had a premonition that the Requiem was anomen of his own coming death. The work had beencommissioned anonymously in July 1791 by CountFranz Walsegg zu Stuppach, acting through his stewardFranz Anton Leutgeb or another intermediary, whosought to commemorate the recent death of his wife bythe performance of a work of this kind that he might, atleast by implication, claim as
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yaqi Yang; Margarita Parsamyan; Robynne Redmon; Minghao Liu; Frank Ragsdale; Kim Josephson; Kevin S
Vilmos Csikos; Olivier Lechardeur; Manon Lamaison
Tomas Cotik; Martingale Ensemble; Ken Selden
