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Choral wonder
Area choirs to present Mozart's historic Requiem
By Anne Aurand / For The Bulletin

Published: March 14. 2008 4:00AM PST

When Mozart died in 1791, his final masterpiece, his

Requiem, remained unfinished. The stories surrounding
his death and the completion of the Requiem inspired
centuries of dramatic mystery and speculation, according
to Mozart scholars.

Mozart’s Requiem lives on as one of the composer’s most

important works and is an impressive choral achievement,
said James Knox, director of the Cascade Chorale and
Central Oregon Community College Choir. This weekend,
a powerful collaboration of some 120 singers from the
Central Oregon Mastersingers, Cascade Chorale and the
COCC Choir will perform the Requiem in Bend (see “If Anthony Dimaano / The Bulletin
You Go”).
James Knox conducts a rehearsal of Mozart’s Requiem
“It is so invigorating and alive,” said Knox, who will direct by the Cascade Chorale, Central Oregon Community
the choral performance. And the story behind the piece is College Choir and the Central Oregon Mastersingers.
one of the best he’s heard, he said. “This has so much The combined chorus will perform the Requiem on
history and mystery.” Saturday and Sunday at Summit High School.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in 1756 in Austria.

He composed minuets at 5, wrote symphonies before he
was 10 and had mastered the piano, violin and
harpsichord by his teens, scholars say.

The story of the Requiem started when a secretive

messenger enticed Mozart to compose a requiem — a
mourning song to honor a dead person. It was later
discovered that an Austrian nobleman had commissioned
the piece to honor his recently deceased wife. The
Austrian sent a messenger so he could remain
Anthony Dimaano / The Bulletin
anonymous, allegedly so he could pass off Mozart’s work
as his own, Knox said.
“There is so much history and mystery” in Mozart’s
Requiem, said James Knox, director of the Cascade
As Mozart worked on the piece, his health deteriorated.
Chorale.
Some theories question whether the messenger
represented an eerie premonition of Mozart’s death. Knox
believes it was purely coincidence; a fever epidemic had
If you go

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Choral wonder | The Bulletin Page 2 of 3

swept through the area around the same time.

What: Mozart’s Requiem, performed by the Cascade

“It was just his next commission,” Knox said. “People want
Chorale, Central Oregon Mastersingers and Central
it to be more than that.”
Oregon Community College Choir
When: 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday
In any case, the piece also became Mozart’s Requiem.
Where: Summit High School auditorium, 2855 N.W.
Clearwater Drive, Bend
Mozart died of rheumatic fever in December 1791, with
Cost: General admission is $10; tickets may be available
the Requiem unfinished. He left his wife without much
at the door
money. So, to collect the commission due upon
Contact: 385-7229, www .cascadechorale.org or
completion of the Requiem, Mozart’s widow Constanze
www.co-mastersingers.com
unsuccessfully asked several noted composers to
complete it.

Mozart’s friend and pupil, Franz Xaver Sussmayr, accepted the challenge and completed the score.

There’s been debate about how much of the music Mozart completed before his death. And the question will always
remain: How would Mozart have done it?

Other composers have tried to improve on Sussmayr’s score over the years, including Harvard musicologist and Mozart
scholar Robert Levin, who revised it in the early 1990s. Levin’s version will be performed here this weekend. Knox said
Levin’s version feels right.

The Requiem is sad, longing, loving, Knox said. Multiple layers of music overwhelm the emotions. The sounds are
invigorating and terrifying — and quite complex. The words are sacred text (sung in Latin) about mourning and granting
eternal rest, Knox explained.

Knox, the director of the Cascade Chorale, a community chorus that falls under the umbrella of the Central Oregon
Community College Choir, said the Cascade Chorale members voted among five of his top choices to kick off a
performance series. They chose the Requiem.

Besides, he said, he’s happy to perform a piece with such rich history. It can spark interest in the musical community and
inspire a deeper understanding of the music, he said.

Knox, who has lived and directed in Bend for about five years, invited the Central Oregon Mastersingers to join his choirs
in performing the nearly 60-minute Requiem.

Knox also suggested that the Mastersingers, directed by Clyde Thompson, perform additional pieces by composers who
were somehow related to Mozart. This is the first time the three groups have collaborated.

Thompson, a retired music professor who founded the 40-voice Central Oregon Mastersingers about three years ago,
said joining forces was “a great idea. (The Requiem) calls for a large chorus; it’s a big piece of powerful music.”

The Mastersingers will fill the first half of the concert with several short pieces — about 20 minutes worth — from Mozart’s
pupils and contemporaries, including Sussmayr; Joseph Eylber, a close friend of Mozart’s and the first composer Mozart’s
widow asked to complete the unfinished Requiem upon his death (Eybler started working on the piece but was too
intimidated to finish); and Antonio Salieri, who became a teacher of Sussmayr’s after Mozart died.

“This concert is made more special by doing these pieces because they give an added musical dimension — they place

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Choral wonder | The Bulletin Page 3 of 3

the Requiem in a larger musical setting,” Thompson said. “They include other works by two of the composers who left
their marks on the Requiem and other music that was current in Mozart’s time and place.”

The concert features a 32-piece orchestra, mostly musicians from the Central Oregon Symphony, and four soloists from
the Pacific University music faculty: Anne McKee Reed, soprano; Angela Niederloh, mezzo-soprano; Scott Tuomi, tenor;
and Konstantin Kvach, bass.

Anne Aurand can be reached at aaurand@bendbulletin.com.

Published Daily in Bend Oregon by Western Communications, Inc. © 2008

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