Program Notes: Mozart's Requiem

PROGRAM FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major: Paukenwirbel (Drum Roll) Adagio - Allegro con spirito Andante più tosto allegretto Menuet Allegro con spirito

INTERMISSION WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART / Completed by Franz Süssmayr MARKUS STENZ

Friday, November 17 | 8PM Saturday, November 18 | 8PM Sunday, November 19 | 2PM

MOZART’S REQUIEM A Jacobs Masterworks Concert conductor Markus Stenz soprano Jessica Rivera mezzo soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano tenor Colin Balzer bass Adam Lau San Diego Master Chorale

Requiem, K. 626 I. Introitus - Requiem II. Kyrie III. Sequenz Dies irae Tuba mirum Rex tremendae Recordare Confutatis Lacrimosa IV. Offertorium Domine Jesu Hostias V. Sanctus VI. Benedictus VII. Agnus Dei VIII. Communio Jessica Rivera, soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo soprano Colin Balzer, tenor Adam Lau, bass

(See page 29 for performance roster)

SDMC Music Director John Russell This concert is made possible, in part, through the generosity of Carol Lazier and James Merritt.

The approximate running time for this concert, Performances at the Jacobs Music Center's Copley Symphony Hall

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including intermission, is one hour and forty minutes.

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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19

ABOUT THE ARTISTS MARKUS STENZ, Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra since 2012, Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra since 2015 and recent appointee as Conductor-in-Residence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, is known for his vibrant, masterful musical interpretations with a special passion for German orchestral works. His previous positions have included General Music Director of the City of Cologne and Gürzenich-Kapellmeister, Principal Guest Conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, Music Director of the Montepulciano Festival, Principal Conductor of the London Sinfonietta – one of the most renowned ensembles for contemporary music – and Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

Maestro Stenz’s expansive, multi-continental 2017-18 season reflects the breadth of his artistry and international regard as an inspirational collaborator. Across North America, Mr. Stenz serves as guest conductor of the St. Louis, Colorado, Utah and San Diego Symphonies, and the Minnesota Orchestra, with a fresh programming mix of the classical canon and lesser-known repertoire. Returning in his role as Principal Guest Conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Stenz gives three performances in the fall of sprawling Germanic works by Mendelsohn, Bruch and Wagner as a part of the BSO’s “Wagner’s Quest” series; in the spring, he leads brilliant, lively programs of orchestral works by Beethoven, Korngold, Liszt, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Schumann and Wagner. Overseas, Maestro Stenz leads powerful programs at the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mahler’s Symphony No. 1: Titan, Strauss’ Elektra, Wagner’s Der Meistersinger and Tristan und Isolde excerpts, with newer works by Pascal Dusapin, Mayke Nas, Joey Roukens and Rob Zuidam, among others. Mr. Stenz’s extensive international schedule includes guest engagements at major halls in Brazil, Britain, Finland, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and in Seoul, where Mr. Stenz’s appearance as Conductor-in-Residence includes performances of Schreker, Berg (with soprano Sumi Hwang) and Mahler. In Hamburg’s state-of-the-art Elbphilharmonie with the Symphoniker Hamburg, Mr. Stenz conducts the German premiere of Detlev Glanert’s Requiem for Hieronymus Bosch. A champion of newer and lesser-known vocal and operatic works, Maestro Stenz leads the Symphoniker Hamburg in Franz Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten at the National Theater in Munich in Spring, and in Fall 2018, he conducts the world premiere of György Kurtág’s Fin de Partie at La Scala in co-production with the Dutch National Opera.

Highlights of Maestro Stenz’s previous season with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra included a concert performance of El Niño by John Adams and varied programs of music by Mussorgsky, Raaff, Diepenbrock, Szymanowski and Zuidam, in addition to Busoni (arranged John Adams), Lizst, Rachmaninoff, Mozart, Wagner, Schumann and others. North American engagements included the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra with pianists Gabriela Montero and Juho Pohjonen, and guest conducting appearances with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra with Grammy® Award-winning violinist Augustin Hadelich, and at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s May Festival. Internationally, Maestro Stenz’s touring schedule took him

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across several continents, conducting the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra in Manchester and Leeds, and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra on a tour throughout Japan performing Beethoven Symphony No. 9.

Markus Stenz’s international engagements have led him all over the world, from São Paulo to Seoul. He has conducted several premieres, including the German premiere of a Cello Concerto by Pascal Dusapin with the cellist Alisa Weilerstein, as well as an orchestral work by Dieter Ammann with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich in June 2016.

Markus Stenz has conducted many of the world’s leading orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, Berlin Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Vienna Symphony, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and the Symphony Orchestras of the Bayerische Rundfunk, HR, WDR and NDR. In the United States he has led the Chicago, Houston, Seattle and St. Louis Symphonies, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Boston and Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

His comprehensive discography includes many award-winning recordings. His complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler with the Gürzenich Orchestra (Oehms Classics), for instance, was given an enthusiastic international reception, and was selected among the “Quarterly Critic’s Choice” issued by the German Record Critics’ Award Association with the recording of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5.

Recent releases include the world premiere of James MacMillan’s St. Luke Passion and the Dutch premiere of K. A. Hartmnann’s Simplicius Simplicissimus (Challenge Classics) with the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest as well as various Schönberg recordings with the GürzenichOrchestra Cologne, which earned the 2016 Gramophone Classical Music Award for best choral album.

Markus Stenz has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Royal Northern College of Music and the “Silberne Stimmgabel” (Silver Tuning Fork) by the state of North Rhein/Westphalia. He resides in Cologne, Germany with his wife and two children. n

Possessing a voice praised by the San Francisco Chronicle for its “effortless precision and tonal luster,” Grammy® Award-winning soprano JESSICA RIVERA is one of the most creatively inspired vocal artists before the public today. The intelligence, dimension and spirituality with which she infuses her performances on great international concert and opera stages has garnered Ms. Rivera

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MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19 | PROGRAM NOTES unique artistic collaborations with many of today’s most celebrated composers, including John Adams, Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Lena Frank, Jonathan Leshnoff and Nico Muhly, and has brought her together with such esteemed conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Robert Spano, Bernard Haitink and Michael Tilson Thomas.

During the 2017-18 season, Ms. Rivera travels extensively throughout North and South America to perform a vast range of concert repertoire with leading international orchestras. A proponent of Latin American culture and music, Ms. Rivera’s season begins at the Grant Park Festival with Roberto Sierra’s Missa Latina conducted by Miguel Harth-Bedoya, followed by a performance of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Colombia’s Orchestra Filarmónica de Bogotá led by Juan Felipe Molano. A seasoned performer of sacred and secular oratorio, Ms. Rivera performs the Mozart Requiem with the San Diego Symphony under the baton of Markus Stenz and with Roberto Abbado leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, as well as the lush Brahms Requiem with the Kansas City Symphony, the Mozart orchestration of Handel’s Messiah with Ottawa’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Poulenc’s Gloria with the Fresno Philharmonic, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony with the Butler Philharmonic and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Grand Rapids Symphony. Ms. Rivera has long championed contemporary vocal music, and this season she appears at the Ford Theater in association with LA Opera to reprise her performance of Paola Prestini’s multidisciplinary The Hubble Cantata, which she premiered at the BRIC Festival in Brooklyn in August 2016 with acclaimed baritone Nathan Gunn. She also sings Salonen’s Five Images After Sappho for her debut with the Colorado Symphony.

Additionally, she joins in the celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s centennial at the Celebrity Series of Boston for What Makes It Great with Rob Kapilow and performs Bernstein’s Wonderful Town with the Seattle Symphony.

In 2017 Ms. Rivera gave the world premiere of Gabriela Lena Frank’s Requiem with baritone Andrew Garland and the Houston Symphony and Chorus, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada. The artist also performed John Harbison’s Requiem with the Nashville Symphony and Chorus under Giancarlo Guerrero, which was recorded for future release on the Naxos label. Ms. Rivera treasures a long-standing collaboration spanning over a decade with Robert Spano and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and was recently featured as soprano soloist in Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and Jonathan Leshnoff’s Zohar with the ASO and Chorus at Carnegie Hall Additionally, she joined Spano on Christopher Theofanidis’ Creation/Creator in Atlanta and at the Kennedy Center’s 2017 SHIFT Festival of American Orchestras, where she also performed Robert Spano’s Hölderlin Lieder, a song cycle written specifically for her and recorded on the ASO Media label. Recent orchestral highlights include Mozart’s Requiem with the Calgary Philharmonic under Roberto Minczuk, Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 with Karina Canellakis and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Strauss’s Orchesterlieder with Johannes Stert and

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the Orquestra Sinfónica Portuguesa in Lisbon, Falla’s Siete Canciones Populares with Nicholas Carter and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 with Gustavo Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Mahler’s Fourth Symphony with Franz Welser-Möst in Ms. Rivera’s debut with the Cleveland Orchestra. During the summer of 2017, Ms. Rivera returned to Cincinnati Opera to perform the role of Musetta in La bohème, led by Louis Langrée.

Ms. Rivera has worked closely with John Adams throughout her career, and received international praise for the world premiere of Adams’s opera A Flowering Tree, singing the role of Kumudha in a production directed by Peter Sellars as part of the New Crowned Hope Festival in Vienna. Subsequently, she has performed the role in her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle, the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos in Lisbon and the Cincinnati Opera led by Joana Carneiro, and under Adams’s baton, she has sung Kumudha with the San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Lincoln Center and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre.

Ms. Rivera made her European operatic debut as Kitty Oppenheimer in Sellars’ acclaimed production of Adams’s Doctor Atomic with the Netherlands Opera, a role that also served for her debuts at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, Finnish National Opera and Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, Spain. She joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for its new production of Doctor Atomic under the direction of Alan Gilbert. Ms. Rivera has also performed Nixon Tapes with the Pittsburgh Symphony under John Adams’s direction, as well as his composition El Niño with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson, San Francisco Symphony under John Adams and at the Edinburgh International Festival with James Conlon and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

Ms. Rivera made her critically acclaimed Santa Fe Opera debut in the summer of 2005 as Nuria in the world premiere of the revised edition of Osvaldo Golijov's Ainadamar. She reprised the role for the 2007 Grammy® Award-winning Deutsche Grammophon recording of the work with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Spano, and bowed in the Peter Sellars staging at Lincoln Center and Opera Boston, as well as in performances at the Barbican Centre, the Adelaide Festival of Arts, Cincinnati Opera and the Ojai, Ravinia, and New Zealand International Arts Festivals. The artist’s first performances of Margarita Xirgu in Ainadamar, a role created by Dawn Upshaw, occurred in the summer of 2007 at the Colorado Music Festival under the baton of Michael Christie, and she reprised the part recently for the Teatro Real in Madrid.

Committed to the art of recital, Jessica Rivera has appeared in concert halls in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, Las Vegas and Santa Fe. She was deeply honored to have received a commission from Carnegie Hall for the world premiere of a song cycle by Nico Muhly entitled The Adulteress, given on the occasion of her Weill Hall recital performance.

Ms. Rivera has recorded for Deutsche Grammophon, Telarc, Nonesuch, Opus Arte, ASO Media, Urtext and CSO Resound. Exclusive Representation: Kirshbaum Associates Inc., New York, NY. www.kirshbaumassociates.com. For additional information about Ms. Rivera, please visit www.jessicarivera.com. n

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PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19 Since graduating from the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, mezzo-soprano JENNIFER JOHNSON CANO has appeared in over 100 performances with the Metropolitan Opera. She has also performed with Boston Lyric (Carmen and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni), Opera Theater of St Louis (Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann plus Orphée et Eurydice), Cincinnati Opera (Diana in La Calisto), Des Moines Metro Opera (Orphée et Eurydice), Arizona Opera (Donna Elvira) and Cleveland Orchestra's Cunning Little Vixen (Sharp Eared Fox). Her directors have included, among others, Robert Carsen, Richard Eyre, Robert Lepage, Joan Anton Rechi, Chas Rader-Shieber, Yuval Sharon and Bartlett Sher. Major orchestras have included the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonics, Cleveland Orchestra and San Francisco and Baltimore Symphonies with distinguished conductors such as James Levine, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Franz Welser-Möst, Manfred Honeck, Sir Andrew Davis, Alan Gilbert and Marin Alsop.

Jennifer Johnson Cano's recordings are available through iTunes and Amazon.com. Exclusive Representation: Kirshbaum Associates Inc., New York, NY – www.kirshbaumassociates.com n

With assured musicality and the varied tonal palette of a lieder specialist, Canadian lyric tenor COLIN BALZER's North American engagements to date include recitals at New York's Frick Collection and on the Philadelphia Chamber Music series; concerts with the Portland, New Jersey, Utah, Victoria, Ann Arbor, Québec, Atlanta and Indianapolis Symphonies; Early Music Vancouver; Toronto's Tafelmusik and Toronto Mendelssohn Choir; Les Violons du Roy; the National and Calgary Philharmonics; Ottawa's National Arts Centre Orchestra; Musica Sacra and the Oratorio Society of New York (both under Kent Tritle) at New York's Carnegie Hall. In addition he is regularly featured in opera productions at the Boston Early Music Festival, including Steffani's Niobe, Handel's Almira, Lully's Psyche and Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow.

Guest soloist appearances abroad include Collegium Vocale Gent with Philippe Herreweghe, Fundacao OSESP Orchestra with Louis Langrée, Les Musiciens du Louvre with Marc Minkowski, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Akademie für alte Musik with Marcus Creed as well as with the RIAS Kammerchor, Het Brabants Orkest, Luxembourg Symphony, Leipzig Baroque Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Museumsorchester Salzburg, Radio Kamer Filharmonie (Amsterdam Concertgebouw), Philharmonischer

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Chor Berlin, Estonian Chamber Choir, Camerata Salzburg and Musik Podium Stuttgart. Operatic forays include Don Ottavio in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Bolshoi and in Aix-en-Provence and Mozart's La finta giardiniera in Aix and Luxembourg.

Particularly esteemed as a recitalist, Colin Balzer has been welcomed at London’s Wigmore Hall (accompanied by Graham Johnson), the Britten Festival in Aldeburgh, the Vancouver Chamber Music Festival, the Wratislavia Cantans in Poland and at the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Recordings to date include Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch and Eisler and Henze song anthologies. A prizewinner of Holland’s-Hertogenbosch Competition, the U.K.’s Wigmore Hall Song Competition, Stuttgart, Germany’s Hugo Wolf Competition and Munich's 55th International ARD Competition, Mr. Balzer also holds the rare distinction of earning the Gold Medal at the Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau with the highest score in 25 years.

Born in British Columbia, he received his formal musical training at the University of British Columbia with David Meek and with Edith Wiens at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg/Augsburg. n

American bass ADAM LAU has been praised as a “bass of real quality, with sonorous low notes” (Palm Beach Arts Paper). Upcoming engagements include Mr. Lau singing the bass soloist in Verdi's Requiem with Guelph Symphony Orchestra, a return to Seattle Opera as The Speaker in Die Zauberflöte, and the bass soloist in Mahler's Eighth Symphony with Maestro Kent Tritle and the Berkshire Music Festival.

Highlights of Mr. Lau’s 2016-17 season included his first Wagnerian role, that of Donner in Das Rheingold, in his return to North Carolina Opera. He made his debut with Lyric Opera of Kansas City, singing the title role in Le nozze di Figaro, followed by his Carnegie Hall debut, singing Handel's Messiah with The Oratorio Society of NY. In the spring of 2017, Mr. Lau returned to Carnegie Hall to sing Pilate in St. John Passion with Master Voices. He also made his international debut singing Méphistophélès in The Damnation of Faust with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, conducted by John Nelson.

In the 2015-16 season Mr. Lau made his debut with the San Francisco Symphony as the bass soloist in Handel's Messiah. He later returned to San Francisco Symphony singing the bass soloist in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. He also sang Mahler's Eighth Symphony with Maestro Kent Tritle, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. These concerts were later commercially recorded. On the opera stage Mr. Lau returned to North Carolina Opera as Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia, made his role debut as Lodovico in Minnesota Orchestra's semi-staged production of Otello and also participated in Dallas Opera's World Premiere of Mark Adamo's Becoming Santa Claus.

Mr. Lau has appeared with some of the nation’s leading summer

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MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19 | PROGRAM NOTES festivals including Merola Opera Center (Basilio, Il barbiere di Siviglia), Aspen Opera Theater Center (Leporello, Don Giovanni; Speaker, Die Zauberflöte; George Wilson, The Great Gatsby) and Santa Fe Opera (Antonio, Le nozze di Figaro; Commissario, La traviata).

Mr. Lau won First Prize in the 2016 Jensen Vocal Competition, and Top Prize in the 2015 George London Foundation competition. He was also a finalist in the 2016 Dallas Opera Competition. In 2013 he won First Place in the Young Patronesses of Opera Competition, was awarded the Santa Fe Opera Agnes M. Canning Memorial Award for Singers, received a Sullivan Career Development Award from the Sullivan Foundation, and won First Place in the Palm Springs Opera Guild Competition. Mr. Lau has been a Regional Finalist in the Northwest Region Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and a Second Place Winner of the West Coast Regional MONCA. Adam Lau received his master of music degree at Rice University, and an undergraduate degree in Music Vocal Performance and Biology minor from Whitman College. n

Declared "The Voice of San Diego" by mayoral proclamation, SAN DIEGO MASTER CHORALE (SDMC) is the region’s premier choral ensemble, showcasing approximately 100 of San Diego's finest singers. Established in 1961, the SDMC is the preferred ensemble for the San Diego Symphony Orchestra and other collaborating organizations, and it produces an annual series of concerts featuring the world’s greatest choral works.

The Chorus was presented the with the prestigious ASCAP/Alice Parker Award for Innovative Choral Programming in recognition of its debut performance of Daniel Kellogg's The Fiery Furnace with the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. In 2012 The San Diego Master Chorale was also chosen to perform under the direction of the celebrated Chinese composer Tan Dun in the San Diego premiere of his Water Passion According to St. Matthew.

The mission of the San Diego Master Chorale is “to promote and preserve the art of choral music through performance, education and diverse community outreach.” Their singers, who are all unpaid volunteers, also participate in the Chorale's community outreach programs. They regularly collaborate with the San Diego Youth Symphony, Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and other San Diego arts organizations. n See page 30 for performance roster.

DR. JOHN RUSSELL is the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Palomar College and the Music Director of the San Diego Master Chorale and. At Palomar he conducts the Chamber Singers and the Palomar Chorale oversees the vocal music program.

As Music Director of the SDMC, Dr. Russell conducts

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and coordinates all artistic activities of the chorale, which include preparing the chorus for performances with San Diego Symphony and other San Diego orchestras including the Mainly Mozart Festival Orchestra and La Jolla Symphony. In addition, he serves on the summer conducting faculty at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, New Jersey where he teaches master classes in conducting for the annual Westminster Summer Choral Festival.

Dr. Russell is also frequently in demand as a tenor soloist and was recently noted for his “heart-melting legato”. His recent solo performances include Hector Berlioz’s Te Deum with the San Diego Symphony, St. John Passion (Evangelist) with Pepperdine University, Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with the Lisbon Summer Choral Festival Chorus and Orchestra in Lisbon, Portugal, and Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with the Bach Collegium San Diego.

Dr. Russell was previously the Director of Choral Activities at California State University, San Bernardino, and has held similar positions at Albion College (Michigan), Los Angeles City College, Cypress College and the San Diego Children’s Choir. Prior to his work in California, Dr. Russell was the principal choral conductor at the LaGuardia School of Music & Art and Performing Arts (the Fame School) in New York City. At LaGuardia he was the assistant chairperson of the Music Department, conductor of the symphonic chorus and voice instructor for the school’s advanced vocalists. While in New York he conducted in over 20 performances with the world-renowned Orchestra of St. Luke’s, served as a clinician for the New York Philharmonic’s Education Department and was a guest conductor with New York City National Chorale.

Dr. John Russell is a native of Kalamazoo, Michigan and is a graduate of Western Michigan University and Columbia University. He received his Doctorate of Musical Arts in Choral Music from the University of Southern California. His primary conducting mentors are Craig Arnold, Joe Miller and Jo-Michael Scheibe and he has studied voice with William Appel, Curt Peterson, Jeanne Goffi-Fynn and Gary Glaze. He currently resides in San Diego with his wife, Jill and son, Parker. n

ABOUT THE MUSIC Symphony No. 103 in E-flat Major: Paukenwirbel (Drumroll) FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN Born March 31, 1732, Rohrau Died May 31, 1809, Vienna The death of Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy on September 28, 1790, transformed Haydn’s life. Haydn had served as Nikolaus’ kapellmeister for 30 years in the prince’s remote palaces at Eisenstadt and Esterhazy.

The prince maintained a small professional orchestra, and Haydn conducted the orchestra, composed and directed the opera for those three decades. It was one of the most distinguished relationships ever between artist and patron, and it came to a sudden end with the prince’s death because his successor, Prince Anton, had no interest in S AN DIEG O SYM P H O N Y O RC H ES T RA 2 0 1 7-1 8 S EA S ON N O V E M B E R 20 1 7

PROGRAM NOTES | MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19 music. Anton promptly disbanded the orchestra and pushed Haydn into retirement (albeit with a generous pension). After 30 vigorous years with the Esterhazy family, the 58-year-old composer looked ahead to a quiet retirement.

But it was not to be. The impresario Johann Peter Salomon invited Haydn to come to London and put on a series of concerts of his own music. Haydn set off for completely new territory – and triumphed.

He arrived in London in January 1791 and was astonished by everything about that city – by the virtuosity of the orchestra Salomon had assembled for him, by London’s large and enthusiastic audiences and by the discovery that he was famous. After decades of working in remote obscurity for the Esterhazy family, he found himself lionized by cheering crowds, enthusiastic reviews and by London’s rich social life. His first visit, during the years 1791-92, was so successful that he returned for a second one in 1794-95. For each visit he composed six symphonies, and those twelve are known collectively as his London symphonies.

Several factors shaped those symphonies. The first was the size and excellence of the orchestra that Salomon assembled for Haydn. His orchestra at Esterhazy had numbered only about 20 players, but in London he had a first-class orchestra of 60 players. The second factor was the London audience. After 30 years of performing before a prince and his invited guests, Haydn suddenly was performing in front of huge crowds made of up London’s growing middle class.

They lionized Haydn, and he in turn responded to them: his London symphonies are big-scale works full of color, excitement, virtuosity – and sometimes novel effects.

The Symphony No. 103, first performed at the King’s Theatre on March 2, 1795, begins with one of the most striking of these effects: a one-measure timpani roll on a deep E-flat. That timpani roll has given this symphony its nickname, but everything about it is mysterious.

Haydn left no dynamic marking, and so conductors (and editors) have felt free to make what sense they can of it. The editor of the 1938 Eulenberg score felt that that roll should be very quiet and put a pianissimo marking inside parentheses. Most early recordings presented the opening this way, but in his 1970 recording Leonard Bernstein began the symphony with a timpani explosion so loud as to shake an audience’s fillings loose. More recently, other conductors have taken very novel approaches to this solitary measure. (Those interested can explore some of these on YouTube).

This timpani roll is followed by something just as striking: an ominous slow introduction led by the dark sound of the low strings. This eventually reaches a moment of pause (but not repose) on a deep unison G, and then the Allegro con spirito leaps out brightly on a dancing figure for violins, one of those melodies that seems to demand toe-tapping from the audience. A more flowing second idea arrives on the crystalline sound of solo oboe with first violins, and all seems set for a standard sonata-form movement. But Haydn is Haydn, and quickly we realize that more is going on here than it appears.

That dancing Allegro con spirito theme is closely related to the dark slow introduction, and in fact that introduction – now speeded up – reappears as part of the development. Then a final surprise: just before the close Haydn brings matters to a stop and recalls the timpani roll

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and part of the introduction before the movement dances to its close on the violins’ spirited main idea.

The Andante più tosto Allegretto is a set of double variations – double because Haydn introduces two themes to be varied. But those two themes, reportedly based on Eastern European folksongs, are so similar that the second seems a variation on the first. Haydn moves easily between the firm C minor of the opening theme and the more relaxed C Major of the second, and the variations grow more complex as the movement proceeds – one of them features a florid solo variation for the concertmaster. Haydn rounds off the movement unexpectedly with ringing fanfares in C Major. Some have heard the sound of a Swiss yodel in the wind calls of the Menuetto, while its stately trio section glides smoothly along the unusual sound of the violins and solo clarinet in unison.

The concluding Allegro con spirito is spirited indeed – and also one of Haydn’s most brilliant finales. It opens with a hunting call from the two horns, followed by a long pause. That call is repeated, but this time Haydn combines it with the finale’s propulsive main theme, first stated by the violins. Throughout his career, Haydn had been interested in writing movements based on one theme only, and this finale is such a movement; the horn call returns from time to time, but it is from the violin tune that Haydn builds the entire movement. Full of high spirits and contrapuntal complexity, the finale blazes its way to a conclusion that shows a master writing at the height of his powers. n

Requiem, K. 626 WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg Died December 5, 1791, Vienna More mystery surrounds Mozart’s Requiem than any other piece he wrote, and the fantastic story of its creation has become part of the legend. After several difficult years, Mozart’s fortunes seemed to have taken a turn for the better in the summer of 1791. Already at work on Die Zauberflöte, he received a commission in July to compose an opera for the September celebration in Prague of the coronation of Leopold II – this would be La Clemenza di Tito. While at work on Die Zauberflöte, Mozart was visited one day at his lodgings in Vienna by a “stranger in gray,” who proposed a mysterious arrangement. The stranger was a representative from someone who wished to commission a Requiem.

The pay would be handsome, but there was one important stipulation: the identity of the composer was to be kept an absolute secret.

Over the next several months, Mozart began to plan and compose this Requiem. This was a difficult time for the composer, who composed most of La Clemenza di Tito in the space of 18 days and went to Prague to lead the premiere. In the course of these months, Mozart became ill and began to believe certain fantastic notions: that he was being poisoned, that the “stranger in gray” was a visitor from another world, and that the Requiem he was composing would be for himself. Mozart’s health and spirits improved briefly after he returned to Vienna and completed the Clarinet Concerto in October, and he was able to get beyond these obsessions and work on the Requiem. About November

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MOZART'S REQUIEM – NOVEMBER 17, 18 & 19 | PROGRAM NOTES 20, however, his health deteriorated sharply: he grew weak, his joints and limbs swelled badly, and he struggled to work. On December 4, friends gathered round his bed to sing through the vocal parts of the Requiem from his manuscript (Mozart himself sang the alto part), but he collapsed when they reached the Lacrimosa and died early the next morning, seven weeks short of his thirty-sixth birthday. The manuscript of the Requiem lay unfinished beside him.

orchestration, one without flutes, oboes or French horns. Instead, the Requiem emphasizes the lower voices, particularly the smooth, dark sound of basset horns (a part normally taken by clarinets in modern performances, but for these concerts you’ll see and hear actual basset horns!) and bassoons. The absence of French horns is surprising, but in their place three trombones give the climaxes a sonic punch rare in Mozart’s music.

From this dismal and confused situation, certain facts can be established. The “stranger in gray” was not a visitor from another world, but a representative of Count Franz von Walsegg-Stuppach, a nobleman whose wife Anna had died in February 1791 and who wished now to commission the Requiem and pass it off as his own, hence the condition of secrecy. (Mozart may not have found that stipulation as surprising as we do: he had in 1787 composed the song Als Luise die Briefe for a friend to pass off as his own). The actual facts of Mozart’s death continue to be mysterious, but there is no evidence to suggest that he was poisoned. (He appears to have died of acute rheumatic fever, accelerated in its final stages by overwhelming sepsis). And though he worked on the Requiem up to within hours of his death, he did not dictate any of the music, as a recent motion picture would have us believe (and certainly did not dictate it to Salieri). But when Mozart died early on the morning of December 5, the Requiem existed only fragmentarily, and some movements had apparently not even been begun. Mozart’s widow, Costanze, turned the manuscript and sketches over, first, to Johann Eybler and then to Mozart’s pupil Francis Xaver Süssmayr (1766-1803), who created a performing version from them; this version that has been performed – and loved – as “the Mozart Requiem” for the last two centuries.

The Requiem offers some extraordinarily powerful music, particularly in the sections that Mozart did complete, and these include the dark solemnity of the Introitus, the magnificent fugue that opens the Kyrie, the driving fury of the Dies Irae and the solo trombone in the Tuba Mirum. The final sections Mozart sketched are some of the most memorable: the Confutatis, which leaps between the flames of damnation and prayers for salvation, and the expressive Lacrimosa, virtually the last music he composed.

Given the incomplete state of the Requiem at the time of Mozart’s death, however, questions inevitably remain: how much of the Requiem is authentically Mozart and how much of it is by Süssmayr?

And – tantalizingly – how would the Requiem have been different if Mozart had lived to complete it? It is known that Mozart composed and (largely) orchestrated the Introit and Kyrie and that he had written the vocal parts and figured bass for the next several sections, up through the Hostias. At some points he also wrote in instrumental parts or cues, so there is at least a suggestion of his orchestration. And so it was not difficult for Süssmayr to create a performing version of these sections.

The situation becomes more problematic with the final sections.

Süssmayr claimed that the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei were his own work, but Costanze disputed this, claiming that the work was complete in her husband’s sketches and that Süssmayr had merely put them in performing shape.

Despite the mystery and uncertainty, Mozart’s Requiem – even in what Robert Levin calls its “torso” state – is a magnificent work. Beethoven is reported to have said that “If Mozart did not write this music, the man who wrote it was a Mozart.” No performing version can be quite the way Mozart himself would have completed it, but as with certain other works left unfinished and “completed” by others – such as Mahler’s Tenth Symphony or Puccini’s Turandot – enough remains complete to give some idea how powerful and moving were Mozart’s final thoughts. n

-Program notes by Eric Bromberger

Performance History

by Dr. Melvin G. Goldzband, Symphony Archivist The Haydn Symphony No. 103 (Drumroll) has never before been played by the San Diego Symphony Orchestra. The Requiem by Mozart had been conducted during the 1989-90 season by John Nelson, and it was repeated two seasons later when Yoav Talmi led it during a Mozart Festival. Two more performances have since been given here, first conducted by Julian Wachner in the season of 2003-04, and then next led by Jahja Ling in the 2009-10 season. n

This situation makes for a certain amount of uncertainty. While Süssmayr’s version has been widely accepted, there have in fact been a number of alternate completions, most recently by Richard Maunder, Duncan Druce and Robert Levin, and these are sometimes performed today. The Süssmayr version, perhaps because of its direct association with Mozart, remains the “standard” version, and it is this version that is performed at these concerts.

One of the most striking features of the Mozart Requiem is its distinctively dark sonority, which results from Mozart’s unusual

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