Music Sunday: Mozart!
Sunday, February 23
Mozart’s Te Deum was composed in 1769, most noteworthy because that puts the genius at just 13 years old! His setting of Te Deum shows that even at a young age (or sadly just shy of middle age), Mozart grasped the intricacies of musical structure – most evident in his use of a symphonic form in this otherwise shorter work. Te Deum opens with an Allegro section firmly in C major before moving to the Adagio second passage – a plea for mercy. A triple meter third section recognizes God’s answer of mercy upon us before the work’s final section – a grand double fugue. The two principal themes are presented in an immediate overlap – the tenor section sharing what lofty musicologists and brainy theorists have long called the “A theme” while the sopranos wait a whole measure and a half before sharing the “B theme” (if all goes well, it proves a remarkable show of restraint by any soprano section!).
The Motet Choir will also share the Kyrie and Agnus Dei Mozart’s Missa Brevis in F.