{"id":26072,"date":"2024-11-12T09:00:11","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T17:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/?p=26072"},"modified":"2024-11-14T12:48:47","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T20:48:47","slug":"victoria-choral-society-to-celebrate-90th-anniversary-with-mozart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2024\/11\/12\/victoria-choral-society-to-celebrate-90th-anniversary-with-mozart\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Choral Society to celebrate 90th anniversary with Mozart"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Considering a requiem is meant to honour the dead, it\u2019s intriguing to speculate on Mozart\u2019s state of mind as he was allegedly dying of kidney disease while he wrote <i>Requiem<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>Victoria Choral Society will be performing <i>Requiem<\/i> alongside Mozart\u2019s <i>Laudate Dominum<\/i> and <i>Ave Verum Corpus<\/i> at the first concert of their 90th anniversary season. <i>Requiem<\/i> is a particularly interesting story, shrouded in mystery and intrigue, because Mozart died before he could complete it, says Victoria Choral Society music director Brian Wismath.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26073\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26073\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26073\" src=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-700x467.jpg 700w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/VCS-Jonmarkphoto-1030-2048x1365.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26073\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Victoria Choral Society music director Brian Wismath says Mozart\u2019s <em>Requiem<\/em> is brilliantly written and has a mystery to it (photo by Jon-Mark Photography).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re 35 years old, you\u2019re Mozart, you\u2019re not imagining you\u2019re going to die, but you\u2019re obviously sick, and you\u2019ve been asked to write this work by a mysterious person, in which you\u2019re essentially going to be paying homage to death, while you are dying,\u201d says Wismath. \u201cAt what point did Mozart realize he was dying? Did he make a connection with this piece that he was writing? Did he end up ultimately writing this piece for his own funeral?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Requiem<\/i> has had many attempts at completion over the last 233 years, so it\u2019s interesting to note that the finished piece was not written entirely by Mozart. The most widely respected version (which will be performed at this concert) was finished during the year after his death by a close colleague. About a quarter of the work was fully completed, around half was roughly sketched out, and the final quarter was unwritten, says Wismath. However, despite it technically not being a \u201cpure\u201d work by Mozart, every effort is made to replicate his style and intent while finishing the piece.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen it comes to who we credit this work to, there\u2019s no question that it\u2019s Mozart,\u201d says Wismath. \u201cEven the sections that were completed by other people, we can hear the elements that we know belong to Mozart\u2019s unique and incredibly gifted approach to writing music. This version was completed in 1792 by Franz S\u00fcssmayr, who worked very closely with Mozart throughout his career, and arguably, S\u00fcssmayr was the person who knew Mozart\u2019s music and style of writing the best. He knew this guy inside and out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wismath says that it does pose an interesting conundrum for the conducting, interpretation, and performance of the piece, because the intent of the composer is unclear.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that musicians are always considering what is the right way to do this, and the right way, the majority of the time, is answered by, what was the composer\u2019s intent,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen you can\u2019t answer that question, it leaves you guessing a little bit, and that is a really interesting place to be in when you\u2019re used to being able to figure out exactly what the composer intended, and interpreting the music within that lens.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><i>Requiem<\/i> is a popular work, not only for its enigmatic history, but also for its quality, and Wismath is confident that patrons will enjoy the performance.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of mystery about it, and I think that\u2019s one of the reasons why this work is so widely performed to this day, in addition to the fact that it is brilliantly written, and you can\u2019t get around that,\u201d he says. \u201cThe fact of the matter is that there\u2019s mystery behind it, but audiences come to hear the music, to hear the setting of the text, in such a way that they want to hear it over and over and over again. It\u2019s a very gripping and magnetic work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mozart\u2019s <i>Requiem<\/i>, <i>Laudate Dominum<\/i>, and <i>Ave Verum Corpus<br \/>\n<\/i>2:30 pm Saturday, November 16<br \/>\n$10 student tickets, Christ Church Cathedral<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.victoriachoralsociety.ca\/concerts\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">victoriachoralsociety.ca\/concerts<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Considering a requiem is meant to honour the dead, it\u2019s intriguing to speculate on Mozart\u2019s state of mind as he was allegedly dying of kidney disease while he wrote Requiem. Victoria Choral Society will be performing Requiem alongside Mozart\u2019s Laudate Dominum and Ave Verum Corpus at the first concert of their 90th anniversary season. Requiem [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,322],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-november-13-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26074,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26072\/revisions\/26074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}