Mozart C Minor Mass: Introduced by Robert Levin, who completed this work at St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London on Saturday 17th February 2024

Please note: This concert is in the past and has already taken place.

Mozart C Minor Mass

Introduced by Robert Levin, who completed this work

Add to my Calendar 17-02-2024 19:30 17-02-2024 21:30 36 Mozart C Minor Mass It’s the nearest you’ll get to meeting Mozart Have you ever wondered what it is like to walk in the footsteps of a genius? On February 17 2024 at St Giles’ Cripplegate, Eclectic Voices Choir and the Covent Garden Orchestra will present a fascinating programme that goes right to the heart of how music is made and performed, how it is created and what an audience actually hears. The two ensembles will be joined by conductor Scott Stroman and world renowned musicologist, composer and pianist Robert Levin, who embarked on one of the most daunting endeavours imaginable in music – to complete a piece of music left unfinished by Mozart. The piece in question, the Mass in C Minor, composed in 1782-83 but left incomplete, consisted of just the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus. Levin will explain how by a process of investigation, deduction, re-repurposing and imagination he managed its completion. What emerged is akin to a sympathetic completion of a historic building, where the new addition is distinct but beautifully complementary. An aperitif to the performance will be provided by David Dolan, Professor of Classical Improvisation at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, illustrating techniques of embellishment and improvisation employed in Mozart's time. Today, improvisation is most associated with jazz, and there are few musicians more conversant in both jazz and classical musical language than Scott Stroman. Scott insists that those musical sensibilities most apparent in jazz are applicable to all other forms and strongly influence the way he approaches conducting a classical piece. “Working in jazz means that you have to inhabit the rhythmic language of whatever you're doing as well as the harmonic language. We improvise on those materials, and so to know them and to feel them, and to work in a small group without a director or conductor, as we often do, means that you have to be secure. Bringing that into classical music is easy for me - it feels exactly like the way that Mozart or Bach would have worked themselves, working with musicians, writing and changing things as you go along. Indeed, improvising. This excites me - I bring things that I learn from working with Mozart into jazz and vice versa. On top of this, the choral aspect is really important: in order to sing in a choir, you have to hear the music inside of yourself. I get very excited to recreate what we can see and hear in a thrilling score like this for a live audience.” Eclectic Voices, the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, conductor Scott Stroman and soloists from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama present Mozart's Mass in C Minor at 7.30 on Saturday 17 February at St. Giles Cripplegate. St Giles-without-Cripplegate, London DD/MM/YYYY

Details

St Giles-without-Cripplegate
Fore Street
City of London
London
EC2Y 8DA
England

Saturday 17th February 2024
7:30 PM

Programme

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Mass in C minor, K.427/417a

Performers

Scott Stroman – Conductor
Robert Levin – Musicologist
David Dolan – Musicologist
Michael Lafferty – tenor
Redmond Sanders – baritone
Alexandra Achillea Pouta – soprano
Adaya Peled – soprano

Eclectic Voices
Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra

Programme Note

It’s the nearest you’ll get to meeting Mozart

Have you ever wondered what it is like to walk in the footsteps of a genius? On February 17 2024 at St Giles’ Cripplegate, Eclectic Voices Choir and the Covent Garden Orchestra will present a fascinating programme that goes right to the heart of how music is made and performed, how it is created and what an audience actually hears. The two ensembles will be joined by conductor Scott Stroman and world renowned musicologist, composer and pianist Robert Levin, who embarked on one of the most daunting endeavours imaginable in music – to complete a piece of music left unfinished by Mozart.

The piece in question, the Mass in C Minor, composed in 1782-83 but left incomplete, consisted of just the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Benedictus. Levin will explain how by a process of investigation, deduction, re-repurposing and imagination he managed its completion. What emerged is akin to a sympathetic completion of a historic building, where the new addition is distinct but beautifully complementary.

An aperitif to the performance will be provided by David Dolan, Professor of Classical Improvisation at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, illustrating techniques of embellishment and improvisation employed in Mozart's time.

Today, improvisation is most associated with jazz, and there are few musicians more conversant in both jazz and classical musical language than Scott Stroman. Scott insists that those musical sensibilities most apparent in jazz are applicable to all other forms and strongly influence the way he approaches conducting a classical piece.

“Working in jazz means that you have to inhabit the rhythmic language of whatever you're doing as well as the harmonic language. We improvise on those materials, and so to know them and to feel them, and to work in a small group without a director or conductor, as we often do, means that you have to be secure. Bringing that into classical music is easy for me - it feels exactly like the way that Mozart or Bach would have worked themselves, working with musicians, writing and changing things as you go along. Indeed, improvising. This excites me - I bring things that I learn from working with Mozart into jazz and vice versa. On top of this, the choral aspect is really important: in order to sing in a choir, you have to hear the music inside of yourself. I get very excited to recreate what we can see and hear in a thrilling score like this for a live audience.”

Eclectic Voices, the Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra, conductor Scott Stroman and soloists from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama present Mozart's Mass in C Minor at 7.30 on Saturday 17 February at St. Giles Cripplegate.

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