The Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, led by artistic director and chief conductor Gintaras Rinkevičius, continues the 16th LVSO Summer Festival. The second part of the festival concert will take place on June 6th in the LVSO Concert Hall - one of the greatest and most mature works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will be performed here - the Great Mass in C minor.
Along with WA Mozart's Requiem, the Great Mass is one of the most famous masterpieces of the world's sacred music heritage. The work, which requires great skill, will be performed at the LVSO Summer Festival by renowned Lithuanian opera soloists sopranos Lauryna Bendžiūnaitė, Lina Dambrauskaitė, tenor Karolis Kašiuba, bass Žilvinas Steponas Miškinis, the Vilnius State Choir (conductor Arūnas Dambrauskas) and the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro G. Rinkevičius.
Not only is the music of WA Mozart's Great Mass special, but so is the story of its creation. WA Mozart promised to compose the Great Mass as a thank you for the recovery of his fiancée Constanze Weber. He began writing the work in the summer of 1782 in Vienna, shortly before their wedding. WA Mozart's father, Leopold Mozart, was unhappy with his son's choice of fiancée, although in his letters to his father Wolfgang did not spare Constanze praise: "She is not ugly, but she is not beautiful either. Her whole beauty consists of two small black eyes and a beautiful figure. She is not witty, but she has enough understanding to fulfill all her duties as a wife and mother... and the best heart in the world. I love her and she loves me with all her heart. Tell me, could I wish for a better wife?" - wrote WA Mozart. However, his father was not convinced. For obvious reasons, his letters to his son were later destroyed by Constanze. The couple married in August 1782, but the Mass that WA Mozart had promised to write remained unfinished. The reasons for this are still unknown.
Another mystery is related to the Mass: why did WA Mozart, having been released from his job at the Salzburg manor house and moved to Vienna, where church music was not in demand, set out to write a work of this genre? The most logical explanation, which is generally confirmed by the score, is the great discovery that WA Mozart made before he began writing the Mass – this is late Baroque music, which until then had been considered hopelessly outdated. In the Great Mass, WA Mozart combined two aspects – the pomp and solemnity characteristic of Salzburg of that period and the influence of the Baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. The premiere of the work took place in October 1783 in Salzburg, in the presence of the composer himself – WA Mozart came to his hometown to introduce his future wife to his father and sister. The annual performance of WA Mozart’s Great Mass is still a beautiful tradition of the Salzburg Festival.
The LVSO Summer Festival concert "WA Mozart. Great Mass in C minor" will take place on June 2025, 6 at 19 p.m. in the LVSO Concert Hall. Tickets are distributed by the LVSO Concert Hall box office and Bilietai.lt.
