ASU Chamber Orchestra and
Chamber Singers present

Fall Choral Festival,

Mozart
Requiem
Jason Caslor and David Schildkret,
conductors

School of Music
Herberger Institute for Design & the Arts
Arizona State University
2015-2016 Season
October 19, 2015
7:30pm
Central United Methodist Church of Phoenix

*All events in ASU Gammage
unless otherwise specified
*All concerts begin at 7:30pm
November 18, 2015
ASU Symphony Orchestra
Katrina Canellakis conducts Mahler
Katrina Canellakis, guest conductor
December 4, 2015
ASU Symphony Orchestra and Combined Choirs
Holiday Music Festival
Jason Caslor and David Schildkret, conductors

ASU Chamber Orchestra
Jason Caslor, conductor

Symphony No. 104 in D Major,
London (1795) ...................................................................... Joseph Haydn
(1732-1809)
I. Adagio — Allegro
II. Andante
III. Menuetto—Trio: Allegro
IV. Finale: Allegro spiritoso

Intermission

Requiem, K. 626..................................................................................... W. A. Mozart
(1719-1787)
Introit and Kyrie
Kyla McCarrel, soprano

Sequence

Dies irae
Tuba mirum

Melanie Holm, soprano; Miriam Schildkret, mezzo-soprano;
Michael Devery, tenor; Paul Gamble, bass

Rex tremendae
Recordare
Chelsea Janzen, soprano; Frances Tenney, mezzo-soprano;
Adam Sowards, tenor; Ryan Downey, bass

Confutatis
Lacrymosa
Offertory
Domine Jesu
Kyla McCarrel, soprano; Frances Tenney, mezzo-soprano;
Carey Brandt, tenor; Paul Gamble, bass

Hostias
Sanctus and Benedictus
Asleif Willmer, soprano; Miriam Schildkret, mezzo-soprano;
Brian Jeffers, tenor; Ryan Downey, bass

Agnus Dei and Communion
Kyla McCarrel, soprano

Arizona State University Chamber Singers
Jaime Namminga, rehearsal pianist
Julie Neish, assistant conductor
David Schildkret, conductor
Soprano
Melanie Holm
Chelsea Janzen
Carrie Klofach
Kyla McCarrel
Asleif Willmer

Tenor
Carey Brandt
Michael Devery
Brian Jeffers
Alex Kunz
Andrew Peck
Adam Sowards

Alto
Brynn Lewallen
Julie Neish
Miriam Schildkret
Frances Tenney

Bass
Ryan Downey
Paul Gamble
Titus Kautz
Lane Northcutt

Arizona State University Chamber Orchestra
Jason Caslor, conductor
Flute
Rebekah Watkins
Rachel Minto

Horn
Juli Smith
Nicole Sanchez

Oboe
Sarah BatesKennard
Elizabeth
Henderson

Trumpet
Tim Hutchens
Adam Dixon

Bassoon
Kiefer Strickland
Gabby Hsu
Clarinet
Kisti Hanno
Jack Liang

Timpani
John Ling
Violin 1
Xiangyuan Huang
Beth Youngblood
Vladimir Gebe
Kathleen Strahm
Tee Tong Tang

Violin 2
Olivia Lemmelin
Luke Hill
Aihua Zhang
Meghan Ruel
Viola
Yeng-Fang Chen
Sarah Knight
Sarah Evins
Daniel Lorenzo
Cello
Alex Duke
Angelese Pepper
Double Bass
Josh Zimpfer

Symphony No. 104 "London"
Joseph Haydn was born in Rohrau, Lower Austria on March 31,
1732, and died in Vienna on May 31, 1809. He composed his 104th
Symphony in 1795. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2
bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and orchestral strings.
Approximate duration: 25 minutes.
The first performance of Symphony No. 104 most likely took
place on April 13, 1795. Haydn chose to conduct his final symphony
again at his farewell concert in London three weeks later.
The symphony opens with a slow and grand introduction in D
minor, which leads to the first movement proper in D major. This is in
sonata form and starts in cut time. The movement is monothematic:
the second theme is simply the first theme transposed to A major. The
exposition is in D Major, with the strings playing the first theme. The
theme goes straight into A Major with the woodwinds to form a
second theme; there is no modulation involved in this key change. The
exposition closes with a codetta and is followed by the development
which begins in B minor, using the rhythmic pattern of the second half
of the theme. The development ends with the full orchestra. In the
recapitulation, the first theme is heard again in D Major. It uses
imitative patterns of the woodwinds in the second theme. The piece
closes with a coda, also in D major.
The second movement, in G major, opens with the main theme
in the strings. After this, a brief episode highlighting A minor and D
minor leads to a modified repeat of the main theme in both strings
and bassoon. From here, a second section begins which modulates to
various other keys, including G minor and B fl at major, but continues
to feature the melody of the main theme. After arriving on the
dominant of G major, the music of the first section returns. The rest of
the movement consists of a modification of the first section of music,
with several changes in rhythm and more prominence to the winds,
especially the flute.
The third movement is a minuet and trio in D major. The
minuet section consists of a ternary (ABA) form with an opening
section emphasizing the tonic, while the second section visits the
relative minor (B minor) and the dominant (A major). The trio is in B
fl at major, and uses the oboe and bassoon extensively. Like in the
minuet, this trio’s B section emphasizes the relative minor (in this
case, G minor). The trio ends with a transition back to dominant of the
main key in preparation for the return to the minuet. The exuberant

finale, in fast tempo and in sonata form, opens in the mode of folk
music using a drone bass and a theme often claimed to have
originated as a Croatian folk song. This is not entirely surprising, as
Haydn once lived in Croatia. The development section settles on the
dominant of the main key, as is typical, but the recapitulation does not
occur immediately. Instead, the development is extended with a
section in F sharp minor, after which the recapitulation in D major
follows immediately.
- Program Note © Toronto Symphony
Notes on the Mozart Requiem
In almost every major musical work, there is a moment that makes us
scratch our heads a little—a choice that makes us wonder, “What was
the composer thinking?” The Tuba mirum in Mozart’s Requiem is just
such a moment, especially for anyone familiar with other settings of
this text. In the Requiems of Berlioz and Verdi, for instance, these
words are sung to startling, even earth-shaking music: the full chorus
shouts desperately over an enormous orchestra with blaring brass
instruments ranged all around the concert hall to depict the trumpet
of Judgment Day.
Mozart, by contrast, assigns the text to a lone male voice. The
“wondrous horn” of the poem is portrayed by one trombone playing a
gentle tune that is almost a lullaby. While the music is declamatory
and somewhat dramatic, there is no sense of the looming disaster that
pervades those other works. Why?
Such moments (and the questions they raise) often provide us
the keys to a work, offering deep insights into the composer’s view of
the text. This seems especially true of Mozart’s Requiem.
Understanding (or at least explaining plausibly) Mozart’s somewhat
unexpected choice for the Tuba mirum can unlock the work for us.
As we dig deeper, Mozart’s approach seems even more
puzzling in view of the conventional narrative that describes the
genesis of the Requiem: Mozart, sensing his imminent death, wrote
the work under a pervasive cloud of doom, in a constant state of fear.
If this is true, how do we explain the character of the Tuba mirum? On
the other hand, if we’ve understood the Tuba mirum correctly as a
calming piece, perhaps Mozart wasn’t as petrified as the familiar story
would have us believe. We must resolve this conflict in order to
perform the work coherently and effectively.

Mozart was working on the Requiem when he died
unexpectedly after a short illness (probably the consequence of a
constitution weakened by a series of childhood health crises) in
December of 1791, less than two months before his thirty-sixth
birthday. In the late eighteenth-century imagination, already shaped
by Goethe’s romanticism and on the brink of the phantasmagoria of
ETA Hoffmann and the Brothers Grimm, Mozart’s biography must
have seemed like the stuff of fairy tale: as a tiny child, he shows
nearly supernatural skill and is the toast of European royalty. He
enjoys a successful career, then is cut down by a sudden, mysterious
illness in the prime of his life. And what is he working on at his
untimely demise? A Mass for the Dead. The Faustian overtones are
irresistible.
The story takes a Gothic turn if we consider the circumstances
under which Mozart came to write the Requiem: an emissary
(masked, in some accounts) came to Mozart on behalf of an
anonymous patron and commissioned a Mass for the Dead. The
messenger made a down payment of half the agreed-upon fee; the
remainder would be paid on delivery of the finished composition.
Mozart was busy with other pieces at the time (including two big
operas, The Magic Flute and The Mercy of Titus), so the Requiem took
longer than planned. That is probably why he was working on it even
during his fatal illness. Several people took up the task of completing
the piece after Mozart died, and it was eventually put in final form by
Mozart’s pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr so that the widow, Constanze
Mozart, could collect the outstanding fee. (We are performing
Süssmayr’s completion tonight. It is one of many attempts to finish
the work but the only one that comes from Mozart’s time.)
A story so little burdened with facts (who was the messenger?
who commissioned the work? where and when was it to be
performed?) offers plenty of room for Romantic embroidery. With
each retelling of the story, the appearance of the messenger becomes
more other-worldly and his visits more ghostly and frequent; Mozart’s
reaction to the messenger becomes more filled with dread; Mozart’s
premonitions of his own death become more numerous and dire; and
so on. But history always has the luxury of knowing how things turn
out. We must remember that Mozart didn’t know that he was dying.
Despite what is said in later versions of the story, he didn’t even
suspect it—he thought he had a bad cold. The forebodings,
presentiments, and omens are all embellishments.

The real story finally came to light in the mid-twentieth
century, and it is at the same time banal and oddly humorous. A
wealthy nobleman named Count Walsegg von Stuppach was fond of
passing off music composed by others as his own. His court musicians
were smart enough to play along: he would present them with a new
piece without a composer’s name noted on the parts. After they had
played it, he would ask them archly who they thought had written it,
and they would reply gamely that the composer could be none other
than the count himself.
Count Walsegg’s young wife had died in February of 1791. As
was a common practice, he planned to mark the anniversary of her
death with a newly composed Requiem Mass, but he wanted people to
believe that it was his own composition. So he sent a retainer (his
steward, Franz Anton Leutgeb) to commission the work secretly from
Mozart. Walsegg did eventually present the Requiem in honor of his
wife, but Mozart’s authorship was already known, so he could not in
the end pretend to have written it.
Any mystery clinging to the Requiem therefore has more to do
with Count Walsegg’s intended deception than it does with ghostly
visitors from the other world. What’s more, Mozart most likely
understood what was going on and didn’t need to succumb to morbid
fantasies to explain the messenger’s preference for anonymity and the
air of intrigue surrounding the commission.
So rather than writing under sentence of death, Mozart was
faithfully carrying out an assignment, and this might explain the
nature of the Tuba mirum. Still, it is not enough to say that the story is
more fiction than fact and therefore may not accurately suggest
Mozart’s feelings towards his task. Can we find anything that
expresses Mozart’s attitudes towards death and dying? It turns out
that we can, because Mozart was an avid letter-writer, and most of his
letters survive.
In April of 1787, Mozart learned that his father, Leopold
Mozart, was gravely ill. He sent Leopold a beautiful letter of
reassurance. It reads, in part:
As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our
existence, I have formed during the last few years such close relations
with this best and truest friend of mankind, that his image is not only
no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling!
And I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity (you
know what I mean) of learning that death is the key which unlocks the

door to our true happiness. I never lie down at night without
reflecting that young as I am I may not live to see another day. Yet no
one of all my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or
disgruntled. For this blessing I daily thank my Creator and wish with
all my heart that each one of my fellow-creatures could enjoy it.
(Mozart to his father, April 4, 1787, translated by Emily Anderson)
Leopold died less than two months later, and Mozart himself
was dead less than four years later. Even allowing for a certain
courtesy accorded a dying father, the letter is telling. One phrase
especially stands out with regard to the Tuba mirum: “soothing and
consoling” (beruhigendes und tröstendes in the original German).
What happens when we discard the fearsome lens created by
the legends and instead view the work through one that is “soothing
and consoling”? Does the music make more sense or less? “Soothing
and consoling” certainly seems an apt way to describe the heretofore
troublesome Tuba mirum; it is much easier to reconcile the lyrical
melody with that attitude than with one of apprehension. And the
Hostias, with its minuet-like procession, is certainly more appropriate
if we think of it as an offering to the “truest and best friend of
mankind” rather than as a march to the scaffold.
There are unquestionably somber moments in the Requiem—
from the very beginning, with its solemn procession, the music
projects an atmosphere of dignified sorrow. There are fearful
moments, too: Mozart, arguably the greatest musical dramatist who
ever lived, provides appropriate scope for the divine wrath at the
opening of the Dies irae, aptly portrays “terrible majesty” for the
entrance of the heavenly king in the Rex tremendae, and deftly has the
orchestra portray the licking flames of Hell in the Confutatis. But
these are entirely consistent with the sentiments expressed in
Mozart’s letter to his father: by declaring that he finds death “no
longer terrifying,” [emphasis added] he acknowledges that at one time
he found it frightening indeed. Nevertheless, despite the dramatic
episodes (which often dissolve into quiet supplication), the
atmosphere is dominated by the beauty of the Recordare with its
seeming suspension of time itself, the plangent Lacrimosa, and even
the limpid Benedictus (which is mostly by Süssmayr but must be
based on a melody by Mozart). Together, these sublime, lyrical
passages create the ultimate character of the work.

So that is the journey we make as interpreters of music: first,
there is the head-scratching moment as we wonder why in the world
Mozart writes a lullaby for one of the most chilling texts in the
Requiem. Then we realize that the story we’ve been told about the
Requiem is more fabrication than reality. Finally, we discover
Mozart’s views of death in his own words, and we understand that
perhaps the Requiem is not about a tragic early death fraught with
terror, but instead a transcendent masterpiece about leaving that fear
behind and arriving at a place of peace, rest, and consolation.
—David Schildkret