WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.419 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we're opening 00:00:02.419 --> 00:00:06.339 up a file that is quite honestly a bit of a paradox. 00:00:06.620 --> 00:00:09.199 Yeah, it really is a ghost story in a way. Right. 00:00:09.279 --> 00:00:11.199 We are looking at a work of art that is widely 00:00:11.199 --> 00:00:13.960 considered a masterpiece, perhaps the absolute 00:00:13.960 --> 00:00:17.140 masterpiece of its genre. And yet, if you were 00:00:17.140 --> 00:00:19.260 to look at the physical manuscript, it doesn't 00:00:19.260 --> 00:00:22.260 really exist. Not in full, anyway. Exactly. We 00:00:22.260 --> 00:00:25.309 are talking about... Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 00:00:25.309 --> 00:00:29.309 Great Mass in C minor, catalog number K, 427. 00:00:29.929 --> 00:00:31.850 And for you listening, this isn't just another 00:00:31.850 --> 00:00:34.229 piece by Mozart. If you look at the canon of 00:00:34.229 --> 00:00:36.530 Western music, this sits right at the top of 00:00:36.530 --> 00:00:38.490 the mountain. Oh, absolutely. You'll see it listed 00:00:38.490 --> 00:00:40.929 right next to his Requiem or the Jupiter Symphony. 00:00:41.369 --> 00:00:44.539 But unlike those, this one is a fragment. It's 00:00:44.539 --> 00:00:46.979 essentially a torso. It is. It's the musical 00:00:46.979 --> 00:00:49.740 equivalent of a magnificent cathedral where the 00:00:49.740 --> 00:00:52.640 architect built the nave and the altar, made 00:00:52.640 --> 00:00:54.380 them more beautiful than anything else in the 00:00:54.380 --> 00:00:56.700 country, and then, well, he just walked off the 00:00:56.700 --> 00:00:58.539 job site before putting on the roof. That is 00:00:58.539 --> 00:01:00.960 exactly the mystery we are trying to solve today. 00:01:01.439 --> 00:01:04.159 Why would a composer at the absolute peak of 00:01:04.159 --> 00:01:07.760 his powers, young, ambitious, arguably the most 00:01:07.760 --> 00:01:10.620 talented musician in Europe, pour his heart into 00:01:10.620 --> 00:01:14.060 this massive, deeply personal project, and then 00:01:14.060 --> 00:01:16.099 just leave it unfinished? To answer that, we 00:01:16.099 --> 00:01:17.780 have to look at the sources we've pulled for 00:01:17.780 --> 00:01:20.170 this dive. We are dealing with historical letters, 00:01:20.430 --> 00:01:23.810 modern musicological analysis by scholars like 00:01:23.810 --> 00:01:26.129 Ulrich Conrad and, of course, the musical scores 00:01:26.129 --> 00:01:28.069 themselves. The picture they paint is pretty 00:01:28.069 --> 00:01:30.790 complicated. Very. It involves a secret engagement, 00:01:31.129 --> 00:01:33.730 a heavily disapproving father, a sudden intense 00:01:33.730 --> 00:01:36.569 obsession with Johann Sebastian Bach, and the 00:01:36.569 --> 00:01:39.109 frantic attempts by modern editors to fix what 00:01:39.109 --> 00:01:41.370 Mozart left behind. Let's start with the sound 00:01:41.370 --> 00:01:43.299 itself. Before we get into the biography, we 00:01:43.299 --> 00:01:45.500 really need to set the stage for you. When we 00:01:45.500 --> 00:01:48.439 say Great Mass or Missus Alumnus, we aren't talking 00:01:48.439 --> 00:01:50.659 about a quiet Sunday service with a single organist 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:52.640 playing softly in the background. Not at all. 00:01:52.680 --> 00:01:54.780 No, this is big speaker music. In the 18th century, 00:01:54.980 --> 00:01:57.780 a Missus Alumnus was the blockbuster movie of 00:01:57.780 --> 00:02:00.540 church music. The absolute biggest scale possible. 00:02:00.879 --> 00:02:03.599 Right. It is scored for a massive apparatus. 00:02:03.719 --> 00:02:06.780 We're talking two soprano soloists, a tenor, 00:02:06.799 --> 00:02:10.199 a bass, a large orchestra. And this is crucial. 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:13.289 A double chorus. Which means the choir is split 00:02:13.289 --> 00:02:16.030 into two distinct groups. Yes. So they're essentially 00:02:16.030 --> 00:02:18.430 singing against each other. Exactly. It creates 00:02:18.430 --> 00:02:20.770 this immense stereo effect, this massive wall 00:02:20.770 --> 00:02:23.669 of sound. It is grand. It is complex. And it 00:02:23.669 --> 00:02:25.969 is incredibly demanding for the performers. This 00:02:25.969 --> 00:02:27.530 wasn't something you just threw together for 00:02:27.530 --> 00:02:29.909 a standard paycheck. So we have this massive 00:02:29.909 --> 00:02:32.849 sonic ambition, which brings us to the context 00:02:32.849 --> 00:02:36.110 of it all. Why was he writing this? The source 00:02:36.110 --> 00:02:40.139 is Protestant Vienna. Around 1782 and 1783. Right. 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:44.219 Mozart is about 26 or 27 years old. And his life 00:02:44.219 --> 00:02:47.400 is kind of a mess at this point. I think this 00:02:47.400 --> 00:02:49.659 is a very fair description. He has just made 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:52.759 a radical break from his past. He quit his job 00:02:52.759 --> 00:02:54.659 working for the Archbishop in Salzburg, literally 00:02:54.659 --> 00:02:56.379 getting kicked out the door, by the way, and 00:02:56.379 --> 00:02:58.479 moved to Vienna to be a freelance artist. Which 00:02:58.479 --> 00:03:01.460 was incredibly risky back then. Huge risk. But 00:03:01.460 --> 00:03:03.479 the bigger drama is actually in his personal 00:03:03.479 --> 00:03:05.699 life. He has fallen in love. With Constanze Weber. 00:03:06.110 --> 00:03:08.150 Right. And this is where the Great Mass gets 00:03:08.150 --> 00:03:11.050 its romantic legend. The popular story, which 00:03:11.050 --> 00:03:12.849 you will see in almost every concert program 00:03:12.849 --> 00:03:16.050 note, is that this music was a vow. A vow to 00:03:16.050 --> 00:03:19.849 God or a promise to Constance. Well, a bit of 00:03:19.849 --> 00:03:22.590 both. The source of this legend is a specific 00:03:22.590 --> 00:03:25.729 letter Mozart wrote to his father, Leopold, on 00:03:25.729 --> 00:03:29.539 January 4th, 1783. You have to remember, Leopold 00:03:29.539 --> 00:03:32.479 Mozart absolutely hated the idea of Wolfgang 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:34.340 getting married. He thought constancies were 00:03:34.340 --> 00:03:36.759 just a distraction. A distraction, yes. He thought 00:03:36.759 --> 00:03:38.819 her family were parasites who were going to ruin 00:03:38.819 --> 00:03:42.099 Wolfgang's career. So Wolfgang is basically trying 00:03:42.099 --> 00:03:45.240 to smooth things over. He is walking on eggshells 00:03:45.240 --> 00:03:47.620 with his dad. He is. He writes this letter saying, 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:50.039 essentially, I made a promise in my heart to 00:03:50.039 --> 00:03:52.400 write a mass if I could successfully bring her 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.580 to Salzburg as my wife. It's a very romantic 00:03:54.580 --> 00:03:57.979 image. The young genius. besotted with his new 00:03:57.979 --> 00:04:01.159 bride, writing this monumental music as a thank 00:04:01.159 --> 00:04:03.439 you note to the universe for their marriage or 00:04:03.439 --> 00:04:05.659 perhaps as a plea for her health because she 00:04:05.659 --> 00:04:07.300 had been quite sick. That is the implication 00:04:07.300 --> 00:04:09.360 people draw from it. But we do have to be a bit 00:04:09.360 --> 00:04:12.060 careful with Mozart's letters. Why is that? Because 00:04:12.060 --> 00:04:15.120 Mozart was a master manipulator, especially when 00:04:15.120 --> 00:04:18.639 he was writing to his dad. The musicologist Ulrich 00:04:18.639 --> 00:04:21.180 Conrad, who we have heavily featured in our notes 00:04:21.180 --> 00:04:24.220 today, throws a bit of a bucket of cold water 00:04:24.220 --> 00:04:26.860 on this whole romantic vow theory. What does 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:29.060 he say? He points out that this letter is the 00:04:29.060 --> 00:04:31.560 only piece of evidence we have that connects 00:04:31.560 --> 00:04:34.839 the mass to the marriage. So there's no diary 00:04:34.839 --> 00:04:37.480 entry from Constanze saying, Wolfie is writing 00:04:37.480 --> 00:04:39.980 this huge piece for me. No other letters to friends 00:04:39.980 --> 00:04:42.579 confirming it. Nothing at all. And Conrad argues 00:04:42.579 --> 00:04:44.579 the text of the letter is actually quite vague. 00:04:44.879 --> 00:04:47.620 Mozart mentions a vow, yes, but he doesn't explicitly 00:04:47.620 --> 00:04:51.240 say, I am writing the C minor mass because Constanze 00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:53.480 recovered from illness. Or because we got married. 00:04:53.699 --> 00:04:55.600 Right. He might have just been trying to impress 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.350 his deeply devout Catholic father. Sort of a, 00:04:58.389 --> 00:05:01.110 look, dad, I'm still a good religious boy. I'm 00:05:01.110 --> 00:05:04.029 writing a mass. Please accept my new wife. Precisely. 00:05:04.129 --> 00:05:07.089 It is a peace offering, a strategic political 00:05:07.089 --> 00:05:10.170 move within the family. But whether the vow was 00:05:10.170 --> 00:05:13.230 genuinely spiritual or just strategic, the music 00:05:13.230 --> 00:05:16.529 itself is very real. And in the summer of 1783, 00:05:16.769 --> 00:05:19.290 he packs up the manuscript, packs up his new 00:05:19.290 --> 00:05:21.930 wife, and they make the terrifying trip back 00:05:21.930 --> 00:05:24.550 to Salzburg to meet the in -laws. I can only 00:05:24.550 --> 00:05:27.009 imagine that dinner table. You get Leopold, the 00:05:27.009 --> 00:05:29.269 sister Neryl, and the new wife they've been fiercely 00:05:29.269 --> 00:05:32.509 gossiping about all in the exact same room. The 00:05:32.509 --> 00:05:34.170 tension must have been thick enough to cut with 00:05:34.170 --> 00:05:36.509 a knife. It was incredibly tense from all accounts. 00:05:36.990 --> 00:05:39.029 Considence had never met them before this trip. 00:05:39.089 --> 00:05:41.290 She fully knew they disapproved of her. And in 00:05:41.290 --> 00:05:43.610 a way, the mask became a vehicle to prove her 00:05:43.610 --> 00:05:45.310 worth to the family. Because she wasn't just 00:05:45.310 --> 00:05:47.170 sitting in the audience for the premiere, was 00:05:47.170 --> 00:05:49.290 she? She wasn't just a passive observer. No, 00:05:49.329 --> 00:05:51.610 not at all. The premiere took place on Sunday, 00:05:51.769 --> 00:05:55.730 October 26, 1783, at St. Peter's Abbey in Salzburg. 00:05:56.050 --> 00:05:59.319 And Mozart put Constanza front and center. He 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:01.920 wrote the soprano solos specifically for her 00:06:01.920 --> 00:06:04.740 voice. And the performers backing her up were 00:06:04.740 --> 00:06:07.139 the Hoff music, right? The musicians of the Prince 00:06:07.139 --> 00:06:09.600 Archbishop Count Hieronymus von Colorado. Yes, 00:06:09.720 --> 00:06:12.139 his former colleagues, the very people he had 00:06:12.139 --> 00:06:15.279 just spectacularly quit working for. So the stakes 00:06:15.279 --> 00:06:17.459 are incredibly high. This is the part I find 00:06:17.459 --> 00:06:19.939 absolutely fascinating. We have the sheet music, 00:06:20.000 --> 00:06:22.660 so we can essentially reverse engineer what her 00:06:22.660 --> 00:06:24.899 voice sounded like. What does the Great Mass 00:06:24.899 --> 00:06:27.660 tell us about Constance A. Mozart as a singer? 00:06:28.040 --> 00:06:30.579 It tells us she was formidable. These are not 00:06:30.579 --> 00:06:34.399 simple, gentle hymns. If you listen to the Christe, 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:37.120 the Laudamus Ti sections, they are incredibly 00:06:37.120 --> 00:06:39.800 athletic. They require a huge vocal range and 00:06:39.800 --> 00:06:43.019 very precise coloratura. Those rapid fire runs 00:06:43.019 --> 00:06:45.560 of notes. Exactly. She had to be a true virtuoso. 00:06:45.660 --> 00:06:48.500 She really did. But the ultimate showcase is 00:06:48.500 --> 00:06:51.540 the movement called the Et Incarnatus Est. This 00:06:51.540 --> 00:06:53.540 is the moment in the credo that describes the 00:06:53.540 --> 00:06:56.069 incarnation of Christ. This track stands out 00:06:56.069 --> 00:06:57.509 completely from the rest of the work. If you 00:06:57.509 --> 00:06:59.170 listen to the rest of the mass, it is heavy, 00:06:59.310 --> 00:07:02.230 it's choral, it's almost oppressive in its grandeur. 00:07:02.610 --> 00:07:04.879 And then suddenly... The clouds break and you 00:07:04.879 --> 00:07:07.360 get this gorgeous pastoral scene. It is magical. 00:07:07.459 --> 00:07:10.740 And it has a very unusual orchestration. It is 00:07:10.740 --> 00:07:13.519 just the soprano voice, a flute, an oboe, and 00:07:13.519 --> 00:07:15.399 a bassoon playing against a very light string 00:07:15.399 --> 00:07:18.319 background. It sounds more like a wind concerto 00:07:18.319 --> 00:07:20.480 than a standard church piece. That is a great 00:07:20.480 --> 00:07:23.100 observation. It really is a concerto. Mozart 00:07:23.100 --> 00:07:26.100 treats her voice as an equal partner to the woodwinds. 00:07:26.319 --> 00:07:29.019 There is a section near the end, a written out 00:07:29.019 --> 00:07:32.199 cadenza, where the singer, the flute, the oboe, 00:07:32.220 --> 00:07:34.029 and the bassoon are all... all weaving around 00:07:34.029 --> 00:07:36.629 each other in this intricate, complicated dance. 00:07:36.889 --> 00:07:39.329 And remember the context for you listening. She 00:07:39.329 --> 00:07:42.009 is singing this in Salzburg. Her father -in -law, 00:07:42.069 --> 00:07:43.610 who thinks she is not nearly good enough for 00:07:43.610 --> 00:07:46.029 his son, is sitting right there. Her sister -in 00:07:46.029 --> 00:07:47.790 -law is sitting there. And Wolfgang has written 00:07:47.790 --> 00:07:50.129 a piece that essentially says, listen to what 00:07:50.129 --> 00:07:53.089 my wife can do. It is the ultimate mic drop moment. 00:07:53.170 --> 00:07:55.569 It is intimate. It is incredibly exposed. And 00:07:55.569 --> 00:07:57.410 if you mess it up, there's absolutely nowhere 00:07:57.410 --> 00:07:59.970 to hide. It was a high wire act for Constanze. 00:08:00.430 --> 00:08:02.310 So we have the premiere, we have the family drama, 00:08:02.470 --> 00:08:04.750 we have the vocal showcase. But this brings us 00:08:04.750 --> 00:08:07.389 back to the giant elephant in the room. You mentioned 00:08:07.389 --> 00:08:09.709 earlier the architect walking off the job site. 00:08:09.949 --> 00:08:13.209 What exactly is missing from this mass? When 00:08:13.209 --> 00:08:16.250 we say unfinished, we mean massive structural 00:08:16.250 --> 00:08:18.850 chunks of the standard liturgical text are just 00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:21.189 gone. Walk us through the structure. For anyone 00:08:21.189 --> 00:08:23.509 who isn't familiar with the Latin mass, what 00:08:23.509 --> 00:08:25.839 are the pieces actually supposed to be? Okay, 00:08:25.879 --> 00:08:28.680 so a standard Mass has five main parts. You have 00:08:28.680 --> 00:08:31.800 the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, 00:08:31.819 --> 00:08:34.440 and the Agnes Dei. And what do we actually have 00:08:34.440 --> 00:08:37.139 in the C Minor Mass manuscript? We have the Kyrie 00:08:37.139 --> 00:08:40.039 and the Gloria completely finished, and they 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:42.740 are massive. They span about 25 to 30 minutes 00:08:42.740 --> 00:08:45.059 just by themselves. Then we get to the Credo. 00:08:45.059 --> 00:08:48.320 He writes the first movement, the Credo in Unum 00:08:48.320 --> 00:08:52.059 Deum, and the... Et incarnatus est for Constanze. 00:08:52.220 --> 00:08:54.700 And then he just stopped. He just stops, like 00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:57.259 put the pen down and walked away. Literally midstream. 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:00.220 The manuscript just trails off. The sections 00:09:00.220 --> 00:09:02.179 about the crucifixion, the resurrection, the 00:09:02.179 --> 00:09:03.919 life of the world to come, they simply do not 00:09:03.919 --> 00:09:06.399 exist. And the final movement, the Agnus Dei. 00:09:06.600 --> 00:09:09.899 Not a single note. The Sanctus and Benedictus 00:09:09.899 --> 00:09:12.259 are also partially lost, right? Yes. They require 00:09:12.259 --> 00:09:14.440 editorial reconstruction just to be performed 00:09:14.440 --> 00:09:16.679 today because parts of the orchestration are 00:09:16.679 --> 00:09:19.820 missing from the surviving pages. So wait. They 00:09:19.820 --> 00:09:22.940 performed this in October 1783 at St. Peter's. 00:09:23.740 --> 00:09:26.240 How do you perform a church service that stops 00:09:26.240 --> 00:09:28.399 halfway through the core belief system of the 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:31.320 religion? Did everyone just awkwardly shuffle 00:09:31.320 --> 00:09:33.539 out of the church? We have had to piece that 00:09:33.539 --> 00:09:35.980 exact question together. The general consensus 00:09:35.980 --> 00:09:38.860 among historians is that at the premiere, they 00:09:38.860 --> 00:09:41.740 likely just performed the parts that were fully 00:09:41.740 --> 00:09:44.279 ready. So just the Kyrie and Gloria? Mostly, 00:09:44.440 --> 00:09:46.950 yes. And they maybe filled in the dapps with 00:09:46.950 --> 00:09:48.909 simple plainchant or maybe just skipped them 00:09:48.909 --> 00:09:51.250 entirely. The Sanctus and Benedictus were there, 00:09:51.370 --> 00:09:53.590 but likely in a sketchy form that needed to be 00:09:53.590 --> 00:09:55.529 fleshed out on the fly by the performers. That 00:09:55.529 --> 00:09:57.929 is wild to think about. It really suggests that 00:09:57.929 --> 00:09:59.629 getting the work out there, performing it in 00:09:59.629 --> 00:10:01.990 Salzburg to make a point, was much more important 00:10:01.990 --> 00:10:03.769 than it being perfect. Or that he simply ran 00:10:03.769 --> 00:10:06.009 out of time. He only arrived in Salzburg in late 00:10:06.009 --> 00:10:08.110 July and the performance was in late October. 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:10.570 He might have planned to finish it while he was 00:10:10.570 --> 00:10:12.970 there and just got distracted by seeing old friends, 00:10:13.149 --> 00:10:15.549 dealing with bad memories. and going on hiking 00:10:15.549 --> 00:10:18.149 trips. But he never went back to it. That's the 00:10:18.149 --> 00:10:20.570 real kicker. He lived for another eight years 00:10:20.570 --> 00:10:22.850 after this. He wrote The Marriage of Figaro, 00:10:23.029 --> 00:10:25.950 Don Giovanni, The Jupiter Symphony. Why leave 00:10:25.950 --> 00:10:28.990 this specific masterpiece broken? This is where 00:10:28.990 --> 00:10:30.990 we have to look closely at the style of the music, 00:10:31.070 --> 00:10:33.409 because there is a strong argument that this 00:10:33.409 --> 00:10:36.110 piece was actually quite difficult for him. Not 00:10:36.110 --> 00:10:38.470 technically difficult, but intellectually difficult. 00:10:38.649 --> 00:10:40.850 In what way? How is it different from his other 00:10:40.850 --> 00:10:43.230 stuff? If you listen to this mass, it doesn't 00:10:43.230 --> 00:10:45.429 sound like the Mozart of I Incline Enough music. 00:10:45.549 --> 00:10:48.909 It sounds much darker, heavier, and more archaic. 00:10:49.110 --> 00:10:52.509 It embodies the pomp of the old Salzburg traditions, 00:10:52.610 --> 00:10:56.289 but it also anticipates the big symphonic masses 00:10:56.289 --> 00:10:59.330 of Joseph Haydn. I notice our source notes specifically 00:10:59.330 --> 00:11:02.250 mention a heavy Baroque influence, and specifically 00:11:02.250 --> 00:11:05.399 Johann Sebastian Bach. And George Friedrich Handel. 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:07.659 Yes. And this is a crucial piece of the puzzle. 00:11:07.899 --> 00:11:11.139 Just before writing this mass in Vienna, Mozart 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:13.059 had started hanging out with a man named Baron 00:11:13.059 --> 00:11:15.759 Gottfried von Sweden. He was a diplomat, right? 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:19.440 A diplomat and a very serious music nerd. Then 00:11:19.440 --> 00:11:22.139 Sweden had a massive personal library full of 00:11:22.139 --> 00:11:24.720 music by Bach and Handel. You have to understand, 00:11:24.820 --> 00:11:27.600 in 1782, Bach was considered old -fashioned. 00:11:27.639 --> 00:11:30.419 He was ancient history. The public wanted light. 00:11:30.909 --> 00:11:34.450 elegant catchy melodies not heavy complex counterpoint 00:11:34.450 --> 00:11:37.190 you would be like a major pop star today suddenly 00:11:37.190 --> 00:11:39.710 deciding to write an album exclusively in gregorian 00:11:39.710 --> 00:11:43.200 chant a little bit yes But Mozart sees these 00:11:43.200 --> 00:11:45.600 Bach scores in the library and it completely 00:11:45.600 --> 00:11:47.899 blows his mind. He becomes obsessed. He starts 00:11:47.899 --> 00:11:50.600 writing fugues. He starts studying intensely 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:53.019 how Bach weaves independent voices together. 00:11:53.379 --> 00:11:56.419 And the great mass is the direct unfiltered result 00:11:56.419 --> 00:11:58.679 of that study. So that double chorus we mentioned 00:11:58.679 --> 00:12:01.139 earlier, that massive wall of sound, that is 00:12:01.139 --> 00:12:03.759 him channeling Bach. Exactly. It is Mozart actively 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:06.659 trying to fuse his own modern operatic style, 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:10.379 like those solos for Constanze, with the ancient 00:12:10.379 --> 00:12:12.879 rigorous. power of Bach, which you hear clearly 00:12:12.879 --> 00:12:14.840 in the choruses. That is a really heavy lift, 00:12:14.980 --> 00:12:17.279 trying to seamlessly combine two totally different 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:19.919 musical languages into one piece. It is. And 00:12:19.919 --> 00:12:21.740 some scholars think that maybe he wrote himself 00:12:21.740 --> 00:12:24.519 into a corner creatively. The sheer weight of 00:12:24.519 --> 00:12:27.179 the piece, the intense complexity of it, maybe 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:30.480 he just lost the spark. Or, more pragmatically, 00:12:30.620 --> 00:12:32.799 once he left Salzburg and went back to Vienna, 00:12:33.019 --> 00:12:35.919 there was simply no market for it. Right. Because 00:12:35.919 --> 00:12:39.820 in Vienna, the Emperor Joseph II had actively 00:12:39.820 --> 00:12:43.320 restricted church music. He didn't want big orchestras 00:12:43.320 --> 00:12:45.679 in church. He wanted everything simple and austere. 00:12:46.139 --> 00:12:49.200 So Mozart, being a working freelancer who needed 00:12:49.200 --> 00:12:51.639 to pay rent, probably looked at this massive 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:53.940 pile of incomplete sheet music and thought, well, 00:12:54.080 --> 00:12:55.779 no one in Vienna is going to pay me to finish 00:12:55.779 --> 00:12:57.980 this. I need to write a piano concerto I can 00:12:57.980 --> 00:12:59.899 actually sell tickets for. He was a pragmatist 00:12:59.899 --> 00:13:01.919 at the end of the day. Ruthlessly so. In fact, 00:13:01.960 --> 00:13:03.559 he didn't even let the music he'd already written 00:13:03.559 --> 00:13:06.419 go to waste. A few years later, he took the music 00:13:06.419 --> 00:13:08.879 from the Kyrie and Gloria and recycled it into 00:13:08.879 --> 00:13:11.820 a cantata called Davide Penitente. Reduce, reuse, 00:13:11.919 --> 00:13:15.019 recycle. Exactly. He kept the music almost exactly 00:13:15.019 --> 00:13:17.850 the same. he just changed the Latin mass text 00:13:17.850 --> 00:13:21.470 to Italian poetry and added two new arias. So 00:13:21.470 --> 00:13:23.570 the music itself survived and got performed, 00:13:23.909 --> 00:13:26.889 but the mass as a complete entity remained a 00:13:26.889 --> 00:13:29.950 fragment. Which brings us to today. Because if 00:13:29.950 --> 00:13:31.830 you go on your streaming app right now and search 00:13:31.830 --> 00:13:34.970 for Mozart mass in C minor, you will find dozens 00:13:34.970 --> 00:13:37.750 of recordings. And they sound completely finished. 00:13:37.970 --> 00:13:40.210 You don't hear the track stop abruptly in the 00:13:40.210 --> 00:13:42.350 middle of a phrase. Who is doing the finishing? 00:13:42.610 --> 00:13:45.399 Welcome to the editorial puzzle. This is a huge, 00:13:45.460 --> 00:13:48.500 highly debated topic in modern musicology. Since 00:13:48.500 --> 00:13:50.080 the work is unfinished, if you want to perform 00:13:50.080 --> 00:13:52.080 it in a concert hall today, you have to decide 00:13:52.080 --> 00:13:54.220 exactly how you're going to patch the holes. 00:13:54.419 --> 00:13:56.220 It seems from the sources like there are two 00:13:56.220 --> 00:13:58.460 main philosophies here. Right. Philosophy number 00:13:58.460 --> 00:14:01.360 one, the purists. These are editors like H .C. 00:14:01.360 --> 00:14:03.659 Robbins Landon, Helmut Dater, and Franz Bayer. 00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:06.860 Their entire goal is to do the absolute minimum 00:14:06.860 --> 00:14:09.539 necessary. So they just make the existing notes 00:14:09.539 --> 00:14:12.000 playable. Completion via orchestration, basically. 00:14:12.240 --> 00:14:15.019 Correct. They take the sketches Mozart left, 00:14:15.220 --> 00:14:18.600 fill in a missing viola part, or clean up a trumpet 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.200 line, because Mozart often wrote in shorthand, 00:14:21.200 --> 00:14:24.159 but they absolutely do not compose new music. 00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:27.320 If Mozart didn't write in Agnes Day, you don't 00:14:27.320 --> 00:14:29.879 get an Agnes Day. So the piece still feels fundamentally 00:14:29.879 --> 00:14:31.899 incomplete when you listen to those versions. 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:34.860 It feels historically honest. You hear exactly 00:14:34.860 --> 00:14:37.960 what he wrote and nothing else. But for a liturgical 00:14:37.960 --> 00:14:40.279 church service or even a musically satisfying 00:14:40.279 --> 00:14:43.779 concert, it can feel a bit abrupt. It just stops. 00:14:44.059 --> 00:14:45.720 And the second philosophy. Philosophy number 00:14:45.720 --> 00:14:48.230 two. The completists. These are editors like 00:14:48.230 --> 00:14:51.029 Jorg Alois Schmidt, Philip Wilby and Robert Levin. 00:14:51.309 --> 00:14:54.610 Their argument is Mozart clearly intended a full 00:14:54.610 --> 00:14:56.669 mass. So let's give the audience a full mass. 00:14:56.870 --> 00:14:59.490 But how do you write a fake Mozart movement without 00:14:59.490 --> 00:15:01.370 it sounding terrible? I mean, you can't just 00:15:01.370 --> 00:15:03.330 noodle around on the piano and hope it sounds 00:15:03.330 --> 00:15:05.110 like one of history's greatest geniuses wrote 00:15:05.110 --> 00:15:07.330 it. You use the parody technique we talked about 00:15:07.330 --> 00:15:10.379 earlier. Just like Mozart recycled his own music 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:13.559 for that Davide Penitente Cantata, these editors 00:15:13.559 --> 00:15:16.200 take movements from Mozart's other masses or 00:15:16.200 --> 00:15:18.659 sketches he never ended up using, and they adapt 00:15:18.659 --> 00:15:21.059 them to fit the missing text. So they build a 00:15:21.059 --> 00:15:23.600 Frankenstein monster, but they use only genuine 00:15:23.600 --> 00:15:26.690 Mozart body parts. That is a great way to put 00:15:26.690 --> 00:15:29.230 it. It's a very sophisticated, highly educated 00:15:29.230 --> 00:15:32.230 collage. Robert Levin, for example, composed 00:15:32.230 --> 00:15:34.830 a new credo section, but he based it strictly 00:15:34.830 --> 00:15:38.110 on Mozart's existing themes and style. The idea 00:15:38.110 --> 00:15:40.330 is to create something that theoretically could 00:15:40.330 --> 00:15:43.230 have been what Mozart wrote. It is deeply controversial, 00:15:43.470 --> 00:15:45.889 though. Oh, highly. Some purists think it is 00:15:45.889 --> 00:15:49.029 incredibly presumptuous. They say, how dare you 00:15:49.029 --> 00:15:51.570 try to finish a genius's work. Others think it 00:15:51.570 --> 00:15:53.769 is totally necessary to bring the work to life 00:15:53.769 --> 00:15:55.950 for modern audiences. You also have composers 00:15:55.950 --> 00:15:58.269 like Robert Xavier Rodriguez, who just went ahead 00:15:58.269 --> 00:16:01.049 and composed a totally new Agnes Di to finish 00:16:01.049 --> 00:16:02.850 it off. It really makes choosing a recording 00:16:02.850 --> 00:16:05.570 difficult. It does. If you listen to the famous 00:16:05.570 --> 00:16:08.070 Leonard Bernstein recording, or the John Eliot 00:16:08.070 --> 00:16:10.669 Gardner one, or Neville Mariner, you aren't just 00:16:10.669 --> 00:16:13.769 hearing Mozart. You are hearing a specific editor's 00:16:13.769 --> 00:16:16.110 interpretation of the manuscript. It is a total 00:16:16.110 --> 00:16:18.450 rabbit hole. You even have versions like the 00:16:18.450 --> 00:16:20.529 one by Benjamin Gunnar Kors, where he just gives 00:16:20.529 --> 00:16:23.070 you a standalone credo in Agnes Day and says, 00:16:23.110 --> 00:16:24.850 here, mix and match this with whatever other 00:16:24.850 --> 00:16:27.190 edition you want to use. It truly is a choose 00:16:27.190 --> 00:16:29.309 -your -own -adventure mass at this point. So 00:16:29.309 --> 00:16:32.250 looking at the big picture here, we have this 00:16:32.250 --> 00:16:34.570 piece of music that is torn between two worlds. 00:16:34.970 --> 00:16:37.870 It is torn between Salzburg and Vienna, between 00:16:37.870 --> 00:16:41.110 the old Bach counterpoint style and the new melodic 00:16:41.110 --> 00:16:43.940 gallant style. between a love letter to his wife 00:16:43.940 --> 00:16:46.500 and a peace treaty with his father. And fundamentally 00:16:46.500 --> 00:16:49.039 between existence and non -existence. Exactly. 00:16:49.039 --> 00:16:51.259 Why do you think we obsess over this specific 00:16:51.259 --> 00:16:54.519 one so much? Mozart wrote plenty of totally finished 00:16:54.519 --> 00:16:57.460 masses. Why is the broken one the most famous? 00:16:57.700 --> 00:16:59.820 I think the fragment quality actually helps it 00:16:59.820 --> 00:17:02.220 endure. It is the exact same reason we stare 00:17:02.220 --> 00:17:04.279 at the Venus de Milo or ancient Greek ruins. 00:17:04.759 --> 00:17:07.500 The missing parts actively invite our imagination 00:17:07.500 --> 00:17:10.180 to participate. we fill in the blanks with our 00:17:10.180 --> 00:17:13.400 own idea of perfection we do But also looking 00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.880 at the music itself, this was Mozart leveling 00:17:15.880 --> 00:17:18.400 up. You can visibly hear the struggle in the 00:17:18.400 --> 00:17:21.079 music. You can hear him wrestling with Bach's 00:17:21.079 --> 00:17:24.039 influence, trying to expand what a mass could 00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:26.940 even be. It has a gravity and a darkness that 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:29.740 his earlier pretty Salzburg masses just do not 00:17:29.740 --> 00:17:32.279 have. It is the sound of an artist becoming an 00:17:32.279 --> 00:17:35.259 independent master. Yes. And there is a real 00:17:35.259 --> 00:17:37.660 provocation here for the listener. If Mozart 00:17:37.660 --> 00:17:40.079 had finished it, if we had a perfectly polished 00:17:40.079 --> 00:17:42.819 standard Agnes Day. tied up with a neat bow, 00:17:43.059 --> 00:17:46.539 would we analyze it as closely? That is a great 00:17:46.539 --> 00:17:48.819 point. Or does the silence where the credo cuts 00:17:48.819 --> 00:17:52.240 off force us to really listen to the notes that 00:17:52.240 --> 00:17:54.079 are there? I want to build on that for a second 00:17:54.079 --> 00:17:56.079 because there is something we haven't touched 00:17:56.079 --> 00:17:58.839 on yet. If he had finished it, he would have 00:17:58.839 --> 00:18:00.940 had to make it fit into a standard church service. 00:18:01.440 --> 00:18:03.839 He might have had to dilute that intense radical 00:18:03.839 --> 00:18:06.599 Bach counterpoint just to please the archbishop 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:08.720 or the emperor. That is a very real possibility. 00:18:09.339 --> 00:18:11.619 So by leaving it unfinished, by literally walking 00:18:11.619 --> 00:18:14.940 away, he actually preserved its radical nature. 00:18:15.059 --> 00:18:17.920 It never got smoothed out into a polite, conventional 00:18:17.920 --> 00:18:21.220 piece of church music. It remains this wild, 00:18:21.319 --> 00:18:23.960 boundary -pushing experiment forever. I absolutely 00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:26.559 love that interpretation. The silence isn't just 00:18:26.559 --> 00:18:29.099 a failure to finish. It's a boundary that protects 00:18:29.099 --> 00:18:32.099 the genius of what he did right. Exactly. The 00:18:32.099 --> 00:18:34.420 silence is part of the music. Well, for those 00:18:34.420 --> 00:18:35.720 of you listening, I have a homework assignment 00:18:35.720 --> 00:18:38.450 for you. Tonight, find a recording of this mass, 00:18:38.670 --> 00:18:41.009 it doesn't matter which editor's version, and 00:18:41.009 --> 00:18:43.690 skip straight to the et incarnatus est. Good 00:18:43.690 --> 00:18:45.930 choice. Close your eyes and just imagine that 00:18:45.930 --> 00:18:49.809 cavernous stone abbey in Salzburg in 1783. Imagine 00:18:49.809 --> 00:18:52.710 Constance standing there, terrified but completely 00:18:52.710 --> 00:18:55.650 ready, singing those complex lines to a family 00:18:55.650 --> 00:18:57.869 that didn't want her there. And listen to that 00:18:57.869 --> 00:19:00.549 flute, oboe, and bassoon weaving around her. 00:19:00.630 --> 00:19:02.410 It really brings the history right into the room 00:19:02.410 --> 00:19:04.869 with you. It does. Thank you so much for helping 00:19:04.869 --> 00:19:07.390 us unpack this unfinished giant today. It has 00:19:07.390 --> 00:19:09.470 been a real journey through the archives. It 00:19:09.470 --> 00:19:11.730 was a pleasure. And to our listeners, keep diving 00:19:11.730 --> 00:19:13.109 deep. We'll see you on the next one.