K. 618 Ave verum Corpus in D Major

K. 618,  Ave verum Corpus in D Major

I went with this piece next, because it was also played at the Requiem concert.  A fitting contrast…

I apologize for the morbidity of the following story (trust me, a point will follow).

When I was in high school, I had some of my own horses.  There was this beautiful black and white paint, not quite two years old.  She was mine. One day, she fell extremely ill.  The vet tried some medications, but nothing worked.  It was summer.  I was home alone.  My yearling reached the worst shape I had seen—shaking uncontrollably, unable to hold herself up.  I tried to move her, get her to walk.  Nothing.  I called dad.  He said he’d end it when he came home.  (Ending it was a little less civilized in rural areas back then.)  I didn’t think I could wait.  I grabbed a .22 caliber rifle.  That rifle would have most likely prolonged her pain.  But, I didn’t know.  I lost courage and couldn’t do it.  I just waited beside her.  Suddenly, her head popped up, her ears wiggled, her shaking stopped and she took a step.  I led her around our driveway patting her neck.  “Good girl.  You’re feeling better.  Good thing I didn’t do it.”  She walked with this unexplainable peace, so I took her to the hitching rail to reward her.

When I got to the rail, her head jerked up, her front legs widened, she wobbled violently, and I could see the white edges of her eyes.  If anyone knows anything about horses, they don’t have much for white edges. “Whoa,” I said.  With a panicked grunt, she flopped toward me.  I somehow managed to get most my body to far end of the hitching rail.  However, a telephone pole had been lying on the ground parallel to the rail.  The yearling and the pole sandwiched my right leg.  It hurt, and I’m surprised nothing broke.  I tried whapping her off, but she was limper than a rock. Eventually, I wriggled free unsurprised she was dead.

Ok.  What does this story have to do with Mozart’s Ave verum Corpus in D Major?

The work was composed around 6 months before Mozart’s death.  The piece hums with submissive peace, a contrast to the Requiem.  There are no desires of power, or on-bended-knees pleas, just soft acceptances. The Ave verum Corpus, a spiritual work like the Requiem, is like my yearling’s sudden peace.  Who knows exactly what was going on in Mozart mind?  His wife was sick in a spa after numerous child-birthing issues, causing considerable debt.  But, maybe she was getting better.  Visiting her, Mozart had prospects of new employment from a friend in the area—to whom this piece was written.  Maybe, he had a reinvigorated faith in God, his fellow humans, or both.  A spiritual composition and a possible helping friend could be clues.   

Whereas the Ave verum Corpus is my horse’s sense of peace, the Requiem is the sudden jolt before the fall.

K. 626 Requiem in D Minor

K. 626 Requiem in D Minor

I know what you’re thinking—that is if anyone is actually reading this.  ‘He went from the first piece to the last piece.’  No one said I was going to do them in order (though I did strongly consider it).  However, an opportunity presented itself for me to see Mozart’s Requiem in concert, my first live Mozart concert.  Why would I miss the opportunity to blog about it afterward?

I could devote an entire book to the piece, the mystery, the controversy, the themes, each section, etc.  But, I guess blogs are supposed to be short quips.  Thus, in two areas will I focus, tone and self-serving siphoners of Mozart’s talent.  You can dig more into the conspiracies concerning his death elsewhere.

First, the tone.  Pleading.  Sure, it is supposed to be a pleading to God, during one’s final days, but the tone fits the words like a banana’s own peel. The apex of the pleas is the Lacrimosa section. Like a child coming to a parent asking for something profound and unselfish (how often children do that is beyond me), the request starts sincere yet the ‘pleases’ grow more intense as a parent contemplates, until tears start to fall.  A rumor has floated that Mozart broke down crying while a chorus was practicing this part.  The educated sorts don’t believe this to be true, but considering the power of Lacrimosa, it is no wonder that rumors used it as their seed.  Fueled by the pleading tone, I wonder how much Mozart was questioning his own mortality.  History is clear he was sick during some of the Requiem’s writing.  Was this sacred writing affecting him?  What kind of impact did it have on his illness?

Another aspect of tone this work conjures is condemnation.  But, it conveys what I can only call Mozart’s bi-polar mixture of moods.  Dies Irae and half of Confutatis are the strongest examples.  The fearful lows of tornado-trounced trailer park residents scurrying to a culvert clash with powerful thrusts of a man spiking a football shouting, ‘you can’t stop me, foo.’  The tunes invoked fear, hence the need for the pleas.  But, they also let us know that those who have wronged us will get their comeuppance.

His looking into his own mortality may have fueled the fearful parts, but what was his inspiration for the powerful parts?  His life was plagued with people using him and his talents for their own personal gain.  People walked all over him because of his external childness.  His father, Leopold, was the biggest culprit, setting up the patterns that haunted Mozart for the rest of his life.  Although, external, a child, internally his being taken advantage of must have ulcered him.  He wanted to do something about it, but didn’t have the tools, except for a mature music. 

And ironically, Requiem was the last example of being used.  A man secretly commissioned the work, quite possibly to take credit for writing it.  If the practice of commissioning a master to usurp credit was common, curious inner gnawing’s ask me, ‘had this happened to Mozart in the past?’  Is there music out there Mozart wrote that we don’t know about?  How might that have angered the composer? Anyway, Mozart died before the man could get the work.  Furthermore, his wife, Constanze secretly tried to get someone else to finish it, so she could get paid.  The man she chose couldn’t do it, the secret got out, and pow… history knows the work is Mozart’s. 

How much of it was actually part of his original vision and mood on the other hand…

Maybe some of the guilt-ridden pleas come from the composer who took up the work to finish it…

Ultimately, the mood of the music reflects the all too common struggle that binds humans.  How are we to balance grace and justice?  Some seek out humanity to comfort this imbalance.  They focus on the good of others, trying to spur loving deeds and social justice in fellow humans.  Others—as the words of Requiem suggest—plea for God to rescue them, namely via Christ. (I personally do believe our hope can only be found in Christ).To me, Mozart’s tone does not place confidence in either. He, however, reflects a real and gritty struggle plaguing his spirit.  A struggle that everyone faces at some point—if not at several points—in his or her life.