Saturday, April 5, 2025 @ 7:30 p.m. Country Club Christian Church
Sunday, April 6, 2025 @ 2:00 p.m. Redemptorist Catholic Church
Mozart’s Requiem is a profound emotional journey that ranges from angst, sheer terror, and sublime transcendence. This powerful work continues to captivate audience’s centuries after its composition, leaving listeners moved by its raw emotional intensity and spiritual depth. The upcoming performance offers a rare opportunity to experience the region’s first ever period performance featuring historical instruments including basset horns, natural trumpets, sackbuts and more – breathing new life into this consummate masterpiece and allowing audiences to hear sounds much closer to what Mozart himself would have envisioned.
The Requiem holds a special place in musical history not only for its artistic brilliance but also for the circumstances of its creation. Left unfinished at the composer’s untimely death in 1791 at just 35 years of age, the Requiem was completed by Mozart’s student Franz Süssmayer. This completion offers a poignant glimpse into Mozart’s final musical thoughts and creates an enduring mystery about how much of the work truly represents Mozart’s intentions versus Süssmayer’s interpretations. Despite these questions, the work stands as a monumental achievement that showcases Mozart’s unparalleled ability to convey profound human emotions through music.
The Mozart is thoughtfully paired with a performance of Dixit Dominus, composed by the remarkable 18th-Century composer Marianna Martines. As a student of Joseph Haydn and one of Vienna’s most prominent composers during her lifetime, Martines achieved exceptional recognition in a field dominated by men. She received more acclaim than perhaps any other female composer of her time, yet her name isn’t mentioned enough in today’s musical conversations and performances. Martines’ Dixit Dominus stands as a prime example of her considerable compositional skill, elegantly combining the intricate contrapuntal tradition of the Baroque era with the clarity and balance of the emerging Classical style. This work demonstrates her mastery of choral writing and orchestration, highlighting why she was so highly regarded by her contemporaries including Mozart himself, who performed with her in Vienna’s musical salons.
Tickets at: www.spirechamberensemble.org/mozart-requiem-and-martines-dixit-dominus.html
