Et Incarnatus Est - W.A. Mozart
Many of you were involved in Sonoma Bach's recent production, Born of the Sun. And I know that a number of you came to one of the concerts as well--thank you for doing so! I hope it was worth your while.
This post was supposed to happen last week, and to be a spur to attendance. Alas, events--which is to say, production week rehearsals and the copious preparations required to properly carry these out--intervened, and I never sent out last week's piece.
So here and now, as a sort of fond remembrance rather than as a teaser, I offer a lovely performance of the 'Et incarnatus' from Mozart's 'Mass in C Minor' (also called 'The Great Mass'). It features the soprano Regula Mühlemann, and comes from a 2019 performance in Dresden's Frauenkirche--painstakingly reconstructed after Germany's reunification--by the Dresden Staatskapelle, directed by Alondra de la Parra.
As those of you in the choir and those who attended last weekend will recall, the 'Et incarnatus' is the last of the continuous sequence of movements which Mozart wrote for the mass. Afterwards, his manuscript breaks off, and sadly we have no idea of how he would have brought the ensuing 'Crucifixus' and 'Et resurrexit' to musical life. (They surely would have been spectacular, each in its own way.) Even for the 'Et incarnatus', as for the preceding 'Credo', the orchestration is incomplete, as you can see from Mozart's manuscript (attached along with a modern transcription): The string parts are written out only for the introduction and the coda.
Today's recording features one of the available completions of the movement, in which a musicologist has filled in the missing string passages in the body of the aria. In our performance, we used Richard Maunder's edition, which also included the horns which were likely part of Mozart's intentions for the movement.
Well worth a look and a listen!
Many of you were involved in Sonoma Bach's recent production, Born of the Sun. And I know that a number of you came to one of the concerts as well--thank you for doing so! I hope it was worth your while.
This post was supposed to happen last week, and to be a spur to attendance. Alas, events--which is to say, production week rehearsals and the copious preparations required to properly carry these out--intervened, and I never sent out last week's piece.
So here and now, as a sort of fond remembrance rather than as a teaser, I offer a lovely performance of the 'Et incarnatus' from Mozart's 'Mass in C Minor' (also called 'The Great Mass'). It features the soprano Regula Mühlemann, and comes from a 2019 performance in Dresden's Frauenkirche--painstakingly reconstructed after Germany's reunification--by the Dresden Staatskapelle, directed by Alondra de la Parra.
As those of you in the choir and those who attended last weekend will recall, the 'Et incarnatus' is the last of the continuous sequence of movements which Mozart wrote for the mass. Afterwards, his manuscript breaks off, and sadly we have no idea of how he would have brought the ensuing 'Crucifixus' and 'Et resurrexit' to musical life. (They surely would have been spectacular, each in its own way.) Even for the 'Et incarnatus', as for the preceding 'Credo', the orchestration is incomplete, as you can see from Mozart's manuscript (attached along with a modern transcription): The string parts are written out only for the introduction and the coda.
Today's recording features one of the available completions of the movement, in which a musicologist has filled in the missing string passages in the body of the aria. In our performance, we used Richard Maunder's edition, which also included the horns which were likely part of Mozart's intentions for the movement.
Well worth a look and a listen!