Gratuitous Musickal Posting (TM) - Part Two

Despite the inclusion of one of my least favorite pieces of music (see below), yesterday's church service also featured what I consider the stuff to give the troops.

It may or may not be a coincidence that this month marks the 250th anniversary (on the 27th) of the birth of Mozart, but the offeratory anthem was the first movement of his Exsultate, jubilate, K. 165, written in 1773 and first performed in Milan on January 17 of that year. According to my handy-dandy Grove, Mozart wrote the piece for Venanzio Rauzzini, a famous castrato of the time. Here is what the Palm Beach Symphony says about it:

Mozart wrote the motet Exsultate, jubilate during a three-week period in early January, 1773, while he was in Milan for the premiere of his opera Lucio Silla. The motet is the only regularly-performed work that is representative of Mozart's early Italian vocal style, even though the text is in Latin. Mozart himself designated the work a motet, although it has also been called a solo cantata and a vocal concerto. Moreover, the character and sequence of the movements are the same as the Italian sinfonia of the time.

The motet was written for the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini (1747-1810), who had sung the leading role in Lucio Silla. Rauzzini had come to Milan from Munich, where he had been a leading singer at the electoral court. He left Milan in 1773 and moved to England, where he was active as a singer, a teacher of singing, and a concert promoter. He finally settled in Bath, where Haydn visited him in 1795.

The first performance of Exsultate, jubilate took place on Sunday, January 17, 1773, in the church of San Antonio Abate (St. Anthony the Abbott.) The church--which still stands today at Via San Antonio 5--was at that time associated with a religious order called the Theatines. For this reason, many sources give "Church of the Theatines" as the location of the first performance. Since January 17 was the feast day of St. Anthony the Abbott, the service was likely celebrated with special pomp. Exsultate, jubilate was probably sung after the Credo of the Mass, the normal position for a work of this nature. It does make vague allusions to the Nativity, even though the first performance took place after the Christmas season had ended. The author of the text is unknown. A setting of Exsultate, jubilate by Giovanni Battista Porta is mentioned in the list of Munich court music of 1753; this work has been lost. Rauzzini may have brought the poem with him to Milan.

I'd not heard this piece before. What struck me most about it was that, despite the fact that he was seventeen when he wrote it, there are a number of stylistic elements quite recognizable in his later operatic work - fiendish long runs and big intervals that immediately reminded me of, for example, Cosi fan Tutte. As is often the case, I found myself smiling at the thought of what must have been going through Gangrl's mind as he served up these passages - many of his works were written with specific performers in mind, and Mozart loved to tease them.

I should also mention that this was the first performance of our new lead soprano, the previous one (who had a voice like Billie Burke's Glinda, the Good Witch of the North), having moved on. The new woman has a nice voice, but hasn't yet got the knack of making her Mozart look and sound effortless, a style point I've always thought to be very important in performing his work. Each time she came up on a difficult passage, she got a worried look in her eyes, like a rider coming in at a big jump, and you could see her bracing herself for it. However, I'm happy to report that she managed to get through without Mozart running away on her.