Mozart Requiem BBC Proms


Mozart Requiem

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Tonight, an orchestra always warmly welcomed at the Proms,

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playing rich and glorious music by Mozart.

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It's the Budapest Festival Orchestra this evening, conducted

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And we're going to focus on the final year of Mozart's life -

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something of a tragic gift to the romantic imagination.

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A truly unique musical figure, taken from the world aged just 35,

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at a time when he was writing music of almost unearthly beauty.

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Mozart's magnificent Requiem, unfinished when he died on the 5th

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Fischer and his Hungarian musicians are going to set it in context

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with two other works from the same astonishing period.

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Let's just listen to the tuning for a moment. Not like the normal tuning

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you get. Playing a bit of Mozart's Magic Flute to get to the right

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note. first performed in Prague just two

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months before Mozart's death. And we start with the concert aria

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Per Questa Bella Mano - By Your Lovely Hand -

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which Mozart composed for his friend Franz Xaver Gerl,

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a fine bass, and the theatre's talented principal

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double bass player. Gerl had premiered the role

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of Sarastro in Mozart's He was a member of the company

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at the Freihaus-Theater in Vienna, and Mozart also honoured

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the theatre's talented principal double bass player with a virtuosic

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and highly challenging solo part. Hanno Muller-Brachmann

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will sing the aria, alongside Mozart's concert aria

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Per Questa Bella Mano, sung by Hanno Muller-Brachmann

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with solo double bass player Hanno Muller-Brachmann replacing

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at short notice Neal Davies, Zsolt Fejervari has been

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principal double bass of the Budapest Festival Orchestra

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for over 20 years. He's also a lecturer at the Franz

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Liszt Academy of Music. Hanno Muller-Brachmann

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began his musical training Hanno Muller-Brachmann

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was on tour with Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra

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earlier this year, Next, Mozart's Clarinet Concerto,

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one of his most popular works, though it's unlikely that he ever

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heard it performed himself. The velvety, luxurious sound

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of the clarinet was relatively new at the time Mozart was writing -

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the instrument hadn't been available He'd heard it only on his

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travels around Europe. As he wrote to his father,

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"Ah, if only we had clarinets too! "How much finer and better our

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orchestra might be". Thankfully, all this

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changed in the early 1780s, when Mozart moved to Vienna,

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and he was quick to put the instrument to good

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use in piano concertos, symphonies, operas

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and chamber music. No surprise that he was keen

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to write a clarinet concerto. His friend and fellow

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Freemason Anton Stadler was the first great virtuoso

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clarinettist, and Mozart When Stadler premiered

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the concerto in Prague in 1791, he played in on a basset clarinet,

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an instrument he'd helped to create with the Viennese

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instrument-maker Theodor Lotz, adding four extra notes to

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the bottom of the clarinet's range. It's this sort of instrument that

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soloist Akos Acs, principal clarinet of the Budapest Festival Orchestra,

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will be playing tonight. So now here comes Akos Acs

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with conductor Ivan Fischer, to perform Mozart's Clarinet

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Concerto in A major with Akos Acs was the soloist in Mozart's

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Clarinet Concerto in A major, with the Budapest Festival Orchestra

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conducted by Ivan Fischer. Written for the basset clarinet and

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played this evening with that extraordinary, rich depth in the

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sound of the solo part. So lustrous, rich and velvety. Mozart wrote the

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work for his friend who was the lucky recipient of the clarinet

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parts in other works by the composer, including the Clarinet

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Quintet, written shortly before the concerto. One listener wrote of the

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plane, I never thought the clarinet could be capable of imitating a

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human voice so deceptively as it was imitated by you. Truly your

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instrument has so soft and lovely a tone that nobody who has a heart can

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resist it. And what a lovely town from him this evening. From the

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Hungarian town. Joined the Budapest Festival Orchestra on a scholarship

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since 2002 and has been the principal clarinet for the last 17

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years. It is his mother who encouraged him

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to take up an instrument. He went to Budapest and studied at the

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conservator and the academy. CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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What a great encore! Akos Acs played Sholem-Alekhem,

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Rov Feidman - "Peace be upon you, Rabbi Feidman", by the Hungarian

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clarinettist Bela Kovacs. That piece written to him as a

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tribute. Played as an encore here at the BBC Proms. That's APs that the

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Budapest Festival Orchestra play in a series of concerts that they give

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in abandoned synagogues. -- that is a piece of music. It often finds

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many a central square, now abandoned and no longer used for worship. He

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tells me he takes that to make a point about the Jewish heritage of

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music in Hungary. A splendid encore from tonight's soloist.

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We move onto the jewel in the crown of tonight's Prom, Mozart's Requiem.

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Mozart was still working on it when he died and the story

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of its composition is full of mystery.

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Over the years, speculation has run rife as fact and fiction

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What we do know is that an anonymous agent approached Mozart asking

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This man was acting on behalf of a nobleman who wanted

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to commemorate the death of his wife by an annual performance

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Though Mozart would write it, it's thought the Count intended

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Mozart agreed to the commission - he was short of cash.

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After his death, Mozart's widow Constanze decided to

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have the Requiem completed by her husband's pupil Franz Xaver

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It's unclear whether Sussmayr had discussed the work with Mozart.

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Some sources at the time describe Mozart on his death-bed,

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dictating ideas, or there may have been long-lost sketches that

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I asked tonight's conductor, Ivan Fischer, about his own approach

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to this remarkable music, but we began by discussing

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the thought behind tonight's Prom - Mozart's final year, 1791.

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I wish it wouldn't be his last year, because the question is what would

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have happened if Mozart had lived longer? Maybe he would have been the

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great Romantic composer full stop I would love to hear works by the old

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Mozart. What would he have written in a few years? It's so difficult

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that he died. I can't accept it. And I think something essential happened

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in his last year. Which was? He started to compose in a way which is

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less formal, less serving the taste of the aristocracy, but found maybe

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his own voice, or our voice, or the voice of the people, which led to

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the Romantic period. Often the Requiem is staged with the thing is

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standing in front of the orchestra, but here, you've placed them within

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the orchestra. Can you explain the idea behind that? What does the

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musicians see? The musician sees notes. They play the notes. And the

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chorus is somewhere far away, and the soloist is there, and I always

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found that there is something wrong here, and then I started to think

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let's pack everybody together, like on a church balcony, where there is

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very little room. And suddenly some magic happened, because the

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instrumentalists start to listen to the text, to the words. It's

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wonderful, because then they play with the full understanding of what

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the music means. And does it work both ways? Does it benefit the

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singers? Absolutely, because the combination of singer instrument is

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a natural blending phenomenon. The instrumentalists, most of the time,

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play the same lines. They help the singer and they both breathe

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together. I don't need to conduct very much. We shall see just how

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much conducting Ivan Fischer is going to do, the four soloists, Lucy

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Crowe, mezzo-soprano Barbara Kozelj, based Hanno Muller-Brachmann, the

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choir risk Collegium Vocale Gent joining the Budapest Festival

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Orchestra. Mozart's Requiem, and as you can see, Ivan Fischer already

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onstage, determined to avoid a grand entrance before this piece, with the

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last notes that Mozart wrote within it. For this Proms performance of

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Mozart's Requiem. Mozart's Requiem, performed

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by the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Collegium Vocale Gent,

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conducted by Ivan Fischer. performing with the choir, Collegium

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Vocale Gent, spread throughout the orchestra, to encourage the

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orchestral players to listen to the words as well as think about the

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music, as Maestro Fischer was explaining earlier on.

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But also surely to create this rich sense of theatre that we've

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witnessed this evening. Whether it's true or not that Mozart said I'm

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writing my own funeral music, I must not leave it unfinished, we do

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absolutely no that the work we've just heard contains the last notes

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that Mozart was ever to write. Between the sections that he

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completed, the vocal parts and instrumental lines and the other

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sections, he is responsible for two thirds of the Requiem, the work

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completed partly by his student and partly, as the programme tonight

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puts it, "By others". A wonderfully dark sound

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from the orchestra - no flutes, oboes or clarinets, just two

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basset-horns and two Benjamin Bayl, the chorus master of

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Collegium Vocale Gent. This amazing orchestra from Hungary making their

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11th appearance tonight at the BBC Proms, an appearance by the Budapest

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Festival Orchestra, which now guarantees a sold-out while Albert

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Hall, as we've seen once again this evening. -- while Albert Hall. Ivan

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Fischer - such a great advocate for his home city and for the music of

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central Europe, as he brings us to the end of this or-Mozart programme.

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What a great night it's been. The Proms are back here on BBC Four on

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Sunday, when you can see the great pianist.

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Martha Argerich performing Liszt's first piano concerto

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with Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern

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But for now, from me, Petroc Trelawny, and all of us here

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