Mozart’s Requiem This weekend’s concerts feature two celebrated works by Mozart, both set in the dark key of D minor. On the first half, Maestro Dinur plays and conducts the iconic Piano Concerto No. 20. After intermission, soloists and chorus join the orchestra for the master’s final work, his immortal Requiem.

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born 27 January 1756; Salzburg, Austria Died 5 December 1791; Vienna, Austria

Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K. 466 Composed: 1785 First performance: 11 February 1785; Vienna, Austria Last MSO performance: October 2006; Andreas Delfs, conductor; Shai Wosner, piano Instrumentation: 1 flute; 2 oboes; 2 bassoons; 2 horns; 2 trumpets; timpani; strings Approximate duration: 30 minutes

Mozart’s K. 466 holds a special place, both in the composer’s oeuvre and in the piano concerto repertoire as a whole. His first concerto to be set in a minor key, it was also Bee- thoven’s favorite Mozart concerto, the only one he played in public. (The pair of cadenzas Beethoven wrote for himself continue to be heard even today.) During the 19th century, the piece was revered – perhaps due to its operatic overtones – along with the big Romantic piano concertos and was practically the only Mozart piano concerto played. As scholar-musician Charles Rosen aptly noted in his epochal book, The Classical Style, “The D minor Concerto is almost as much myth as work of art: when listening to it, as to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it is difficult at times to say whether we are hearing the work or its reputation, our collective image of it.” Mozart wrote the concerto for a subscription concert held at Vienna’s Mehlgrube Casino – so named because its basement was used as a flour warehouse. Never one to be intimidat- ed by deadlines, the composer completed the piece at the last minute. In a letter, written five days after the work’s premiere, his father Leopold told Mozart’s older sister Maria Anna (“Nannerl,” 1751-1829) of how the orchestral parts were still being prepared on the day of its premiere. “Your brother did not even have time to play through [the rondo], as he had to supervise the copying.” The opening Allegro’s pulsing, syncopated D-minor chords and rising 16th-note triplets cre- ate a tense, yet unsettlingly quiet, mood. Ignoring this music, the piano enters with recita- tive-like melodic lines that are likewise eschewed by the orchestra. Throughout this restless, recondite movement, the agitated give-and-take of soloist and orchestra moves the music into an operatic sphere. (Think of the ominous D-minor opening of Don Giovanni, which would come two years later.) Mozart’s Requiem PROGRAM NOTES Composed:

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Zealand, circled theglobe, andendedinAmericanSamoa24hourslater. Trade Center’s northtower –Mozart’s consolingmasterpiecewasfirstsoundedinNew ing ineachtimezoneatprecisely 8:46am–themomentfirstplanestruck World ing Requiem”tocommemoratethefirstanniversaryof9/11terr More recently, on11September 2002,musiciansaround theworldparticipatedina“Roll- Recommended recording: Program notes by J. Mark Baker. by J. notes Mark Program English Baroque Soloists(Decca) White;SirJohnEliotGardiner,Willard Monteverdi Choir, Barbara Bonney, AnneSofievonOtter, HansPeterBlochwitz,  orist attacks.Commenc-