Sponsored by:
Performed in Memory of Mary Gorton McBride by Elaine Gorton Kaifes
Scott Speck, conductor
Martha Guth, soprano
Susan Platts, mezzo-soprano
Dann Coakwell, tenor
Kevin Deas, bass
University of South Alabama Concert Choir and Mobile Opera Chorus
Laura Moore, director
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Don Giovanni: Overture, K. 527
(1756-1791)
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Suite No. 4, G major, Op. 61 “Mozartiana” Theme and Variations
(1840-1893)
INTERMISSION
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Requiem, K. 626
(1756-1791)
Speck Speaks
Music Director Scott Speck Discusses the Concert:
“Of all the concerts we had to postpone due to COVID, this is the one I most regretted not performing in 2020. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem holds a special place in our hearts. If you’ve seen Amadeus, you know that spent time composing it on his deathbed, convinced that he was writing it for his own funeral. Indeed it has an otherworldly spirituality to it, as if he were writing it partly from the other side. In fact, the circumstances surrounding the composition are shrouded in mystery. We know that it was commissioned by a mysterious stranger, and that Mozart died before he could finish the work. His disciple Franz Xavier Süssmayr completed (in the style of Mozart) about the last half of the music you will hear us play.
As you might remember from the movie version, Mozart is startled by an anonymous masked figure who comes to his house to commission the Requiem. The music played during that striking moment is the opening of the overture to Don Giovanni — and so we begin our concert with that overture. And because Mozart has been a hero of nearly every musician since, we end the first half of our concert with a tribute to Mozart by the great Peter Tchaikovsky. Mozart was Tchaikovsky’s favorite composer; and while Tchaikovsky paid tribute to his hero in many pieces, this is the one he entitled “Mozartiana.” – Scott Speck