Mozart’s work ‘fitting tribute’ to mark Armistice centennial
Regina Symphony Orchestra to perform Requiem with guest conductor Taurins
Concertgoers at the Conexus Arts Centre on Saturday will experience what guest conductor Ivars Taurins calls the “incredibly powerful music” of Mozart’s Requiem.
Taurins will lead the Regina Symphony Orchestra, along with soloists and choirs, in presenting the work — which he describes as “a monument in western music” — in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War.
“With the 100th anniversary of Armistice, of the end of the Great War, it’s a fitting tribute and that’s where my thoughts have been around this month,” Taurins said. “To share that with the (RSO) and their audience will be very special.”
The Requiem is “purportedly the very last piece” Mozart wrote, Taurins said, noting “mystery and myth” surrounds the work, which has been the subject of books and plays.
Ultimately unfinished by Mozart, the “incredibly dramatic” music became an important benchmark for other composers, Taurins explained.
“Though it’s a Catholic text of the requiem mass for the dead, it is a subject that is universal,” he said. “Mozart, I’m sure he realized he was at the end of his life and writing this music to do with humanity and with mortality. What came from his pen has not been equalled.”
The work was originally commissioned by a Count von Walsegg through a messenger. After Mozart’s death, his wife Constanze turned to two of his colleagues — Joseph Eybler and Franz Sussmayr — to secretly complete the unfinished composition so she could receive final payment, Taurins said.
Then Constanze starting spreading rumours that during Mozart’s illness a shadowy figure appeared to request a requiem and Mozart realized he was writing his own requiem.
“It’s totally convoluted and certainly the stuff of good fiction,” Taurins said of the work’s history.
Sussmayr’s became the “standard” version, but others have worked on their own completions since. Musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon has argued there is much merit in Eybler’s completion rather than that of Sussmayr; it is Landon’s edition that will be performed in Regina on Saturday.
This is the first time acclaimed conductor Taurins will be leading the RSO and he is “very much looking forward to collaborating with them,” he said.
His background includes working with orchestras and choirs across the country — and is notable in focusing equally on both.
As chamber choir director and a founding member of Tafelmusik, a Toronto-based baroque orchestra and chamber choir, he is often sought after as a specialist conductor for baroque and classical styles.
In addition to Taurins, the program also features four soloists: soprano Danika Loren, mezzosoprano Lauren Segal, tenor Isaiah
Bell and bass-baritone Giles Tomkins. It also features the University of Regina choirs directed by Melissa Morgan.
In addition to the famous Requiem, the rest of the program will feature “some of Mozart’s finest” compositions, Taurins said, noting he wanted to find works to complement the Requiem as well as connect to the honouring of the 1918 Armistice.
Maurerische Trauermusik in C Minor is a “very enigmatic short piece of Masonic funeral music,” which uses the same instrumentation as the Requiem, Taurins said.
The Solemn Vespers: Laudate Dominum is a “beautiful movement for soprano, choir and orchestra; many might not know it by name, but they will immediately recognize when hearing it,” he said.
Ave Verum Corpus is “one of the most sparkling gems in the crown jewels of his writing,” Taurins said of Mozart, noting the work is short, but “ever so beautiful and wellknown in the choral community as a sublime piece of music.”