The Mass in C minor is the 13th piece of music to be presented here so far by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I first heard this in the movie Amadeus (1984), which possesses the greatest musical soundtrack I have ever heard. There’s not even a close second in my estimation.
I have researched about his life and music here and what has struck me is how director Milos Forman and playwright Peter Shaffer depicted his life so accurately on film. Sure, they used Salieri as the mediocre ‘us’ (audience) portrayed as the villain, which I wrote about in the article Axur, re d’Ormus, but chronologically the movie seems a historically precise representation of his career and life.
Ah Tutti Contenti (Ah, All Content) (1786) – The Marriage of Figaro Act IV – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Most of the following information is quoted from the Wikipedia article below:
The Great Mass in C minor (German: Große Messe in c-Moll), K. 427/417a, is the common name of the musical setting of the mass. He composed it in Vienna in 1782 and 1783, after his marriage, when he moved to Vienna from Salzburg. The large-scale work, a missa solemnis, is scored for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra. It remained unfinished, missing large portions of the Credo and the complete Agnus Dei.
Mozart mentioned a vow he had made to write a mass when he would bring his then fiancée Constanze as his wife to Salzburg to meet his family for the first time after his father’s earlier opposition. Constanze then sang the “Et incarnatus est” at its premiere….The first performance took place in Salzburg on Sunday 26 October 1783 (the twentieth Sunday after Pentecost).
The work embodies pomp and solemnity associated with the Salzburg traditions of the time, but it also anticipates the symphonic masses of Joseph Haydn in its solo-choral sharing. The mass shows the influence of Bach and Handel, whose music Mozart was studying at this time.
Reference:
1. Great Mass in C minor, K. 427 – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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