Grabmusik

Background#

It was (and still is) customary for a passion oratorio to be performed on Good Friday in several parts of Southern Germany, with evidence of Leopold II writing such sepolcri with his court musicians in Vienna. Traditionally, these oratorios would be staged dramatically, with spectacular scenic design and even division of the stage into three parts: Heaven, Earth and Hell, along with corresponding division of the orchestra. These performances took place with music by popular Italian composers such as Antonio Draghi and Antonio Caldara (Draghi’s setting with text by Nicolò Minato was staged in Vienna in 1696; the music has subsequently been lost). This story could very well be apocryphal, and is doubted by musicologist Maynard Solomon in his 1995 biography on the composer, although there is a similar story from later on in Wolfgang’s childhood. During his first Italian trip, he spent the summer of 1770 with Count Gian Luca Pallavicini, whose house was situated near Bologna. Before departing, Wolfgang applied for admission to the Accademia Filarmonica, and was required to undergo a series of tests to garner a membership. He was instructed to write a contrapuntal work, in the strict style observed by the Accademia, that is, the Renaissance style of liturgical music. According to Mozart’s father, Leopold, Wolfgang took a “mere half hour” to complete a 22-bar long composition (the antiphon “Quaerite primum regnum Dei”, K. 86/73v). There are annotations by Giovanni Battista Martini, Mozart’s mentor, but the work was still approved by two examiners and Wolfgang was duly given a membership. In the notes of her book on Mozart’s early operas, Carolyn Gianturco states that the work composed during the time Wolfgang was closeted was in fact Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots. This claim has been opposed by musicologist and Mozart scholar Rudolph Angermüller, who concludes that, due to the multifaceted nature of the singspiel, it is difficult to relate the story to the work. The entirety of the score of Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots takes up 106 sheets, and considering all of the recitatives are in Leopold’s hand, there is no conclusive evidence that the work could have been written in examination conditions. Furthermore, Angermüller brings up the unlikeliness that a 10 year old boy would be able to compose a work of such size in the course of a week.

Text, scoring#

The text of the work is centred around a dialogue between a Soul (bass) and an Angel (soprano).

Movements#

The cantata consist of eight movements: # “Wo bin ich? bittrer Schmerz!” – bass recitative # “Felsen, spaltet euren Rachen” – bass aria, D major/D minor/D major # “Geliebte Seel’, was redest du?” – soprano recitative # “Betracht dies Herz und frage mich” – soprano aria, G minor # “O Himmel! was ein traurig Licht” – bass recitative # “Jesu, was hab ich getan?” / “Schau dies Herz nur reuvoll an” – duet, E-flat major # “O lobenswerter Sinn!” – soprano recitative # “Jesu, wahrer Gottessohn” – SATB choir, C major, E-flat major, C major

Recordings#

There have been very few recordings of Mozart’s Grabmusik. Some of the notable ones are: * 1988 – Ann Murray (soprano), Stephen Varcoe (baritone) – Südfunk-Chor, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart, conducted by Sir Neville Marriner – Philips Classics 2 CDs 422 360-2 (included in volume 22 of The Complete Mozart Edition). * 1990 – Edith Wiens (soprano), Thomas Hampson (baritone) – Concentus Vocalis, Wiener Akademie, conducted by Martin Haselböck – Novalis, CD 150 068-2 (reissued in 2003 by Brilliant Classics for their own Mozart Edition). * 1991 – Sylvia McNair (soprano), Thomas Hampson (baritone) – Arnold Schoenberg Chor, Concentus Musicus Wien, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt – Teldec CD 4509-98928-2 (part of Harnoncourt’s project to record Mozart’s complete sacred music, between 1982–1998). * 2018 – Anna Lucia Richter (soprano), Jacques Imbrailo (baritone) – The Mozartists, conducted by Ian Page – Signum Classics CD SIGCD547 (paired with Bastien und Bastienne).

External links#

• , Alte Mozart-Ausgabe
• , Erich Wenk (bass), Christiane Schumann, soprano