This morning I was late to church. But you can't say I missed worship...
As I started the car, strains of Mozart's Requiem Mass flowed from the radio, part of a broadcast honoring the 252nd anniversary of Mozart's birth. As I left the driveway, sounds of the Lacrimosa began to sink in, and soon I was undone. It's a good thing the church is only 8 minutes away and traffic is minimal. (The rest of my family had left earlier.)
I sat, then, in the church parking lot, listening, and allowing the Requiem to take me (if briefly) through the process of mourning. I only regret not tuning in sooner. First was the Lacrimosa, slow, tender, and deeply sad:
Mournful that day
When from the dust shall rise
Guilty man to be judged.
Therefore spare him, O God.
Merciful Jesu,
Lord Grant them rest.
Then the intensity, and peacefulness, of the Domine Jesu (Offertorium): Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed from the pains of hell and from the bottomless pit...
and the Hostias: We offer unto Thee this sacrifice of prayer and praise. Receive it for those souls whom today we commemorate. Allow them, O Lord, to cross from death into the life which once Thou didst promise to Abraham and his seed.
Especially poignant in these sections are the Picardy-third endings, where a minor passage ends (resolves) on a major chord. The music, especially as rendered in the recording I heard, by the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (linked), is so hauntingly, achingly, richly, spectacularly (keep adding superlatives) beautiful...
Then, the exuberance of the Sanctus and its concluding fugue:
Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God of Sabaoth.
Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
And the repose of the Benedictus, again ending in a cheerful fugue:
Blessed is He who cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
The mood turns dark and brooding again at the outset of the Agnus Dei, but then shifts to a major tonality and a thoughtful vein, ending with passion:
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world,
grant them rest.
And, finally, the Lux Aeterna (Communio), beginning with shimmering beauty in the soprano solo, followed by the choir's joyful strength:
May eternal light shine on them, O Lord.
with Thy saints for ever, because
Thou art merciful.
Grant the dead eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them,
with Thy saints for ever,
because Thou are merciful.
Amen.
You can say what you want about Mozart the man, but his musical genius was fabulously, fantastically inspired.
I also recall my one and only brief visit to Vienna, many years ago. In the short time I had to "sightsee" before playing a concert, I rushed through St. Stephanskirche and the Mozart museum. The last exhibit I saw was pages of manuscript, in Mozart's hand, of the Requiem. (He died while writing it.) Today it is housed in Vienna's Haus der Musik.
