Sunday, January 12, 2025
7:00 PM
On WCRB In Concert with the Handel and Haydn Society, Jonathan Cohen leads the H+H chorus, period instrument orchestra, and a quartet of fabulous soloists in music that channels the grief and consolation of the Requiem text through the compositional voices of two Classical masters, Michael Haydn and Wolfgang Mozart.
Jonathan Cohen, conductor
Lucy Crowe, soprano
Beth Taylor, mezzo-soprano
Duke Kim, tenor
Brandon Cedel, bass-baritone
Handel and Haydn Society Orchestra and Chorus
Michael HAYDN Reqiuem, MH 155
W.A. MOZART Reqiuem, K.626
This concert was recorded on September 9, 2024, at Symphony Hall, and is no longer available on demand.
See the program for this concert
Learn more about the Handel and Haydn Society
In an interview with Alan McLellan, Jonathan Cohen describes his motivations behind this rare pairing of Requiems. Listen by using the audio player above, and read the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT:
Alan McLellan I'm Alan McLellan with WCRB In Concert and we're excited that the Handel and Haydn Society is performing two Requiems on this program: both the Mozart Requiem, which is well known and a huge part of his legacy, and the Michael Haydn Requiem for his Archbishop that he wrote in 1771. I'm here with Jonathan Cohen, who will be conducting the Handel and Haydn Society in this concert. And I first wanted to know, Jonathan, what is the idea? Why are we hearing both of these Requiems on one concert?
Jonathan Cohen Hi, Alan. Yes, I thought it would be a fantastic idea to hear these two pieces side by side. I imagine one rarely gets a chance to hear them side by side. In a way, it puts really into relief the Mozart. It gives us a sense of what the church music tradition in Salzburg is in the 1770s. And the parallels between the pieces are quite extraordinary. So I think, you know, I was very keen to showcase the two pieces together.
Alan McLellan So tell me a little bit more about the parallels, because it's a fascinating comparison. You know, we often think of Mozart branching out and doing something radically new. And in this case, perhaps it is wonderful and profound, but it's based on something old.
Jonathan Cohen Yes. I mean, Mozart and his church music... he has a great respect for the tradition and the history. And you certainly see, in the Requiems for the Dead, there's a sort of format. There's a tradition, you know, the use of the fugues, the use of the trombones in the orchestra, the doubled chorus. So really, Mozart's really inherited this. I think he was involved in the performance in Salzburg of this Michael Haydn piece, so he knew the piece very well. And I think that's very clear. When you hear them both side by side, that becomes obvious.
Alan McLellan Yes, it's amazing the parallels at the beginning of the piece in particular. It's a striking kind of resemblance of all that syncopation. And yeah, I read that as well. [McLellan chuckles]
Jonathan Cohen Yeah! I mean actually, there's so many details we could go into a lot, but for example, the violin accompaniment to the opening Requiem movement in the Michael Haydn: they have this sort of recurring syncopated rhythm [Cohen sings the rhythm] which is also exactly the same as what Mozart does. And there's little things which— I mean, there's many things in great similarity, I have to say.
Alan McLellan And what are the challenges for the conductor and the performers of this work, of the Michael Haydn in particular?
Jonathan Cohen Yeah, the Michael Haydn is a deeply passionate and emotive piece, actually. I think Michael Haydn's daughter died. He had a one-year-old daughter that died a year before. So, yes, it was for the Archbishop Schrattenbach who was his sponsor, but also, I think there's a lot of personal grief in there. And I think, what are the challenges for us? I think we have to really find a way to go into that deep, dark, profound sound world. The text flows quite quickly in the Michael Haydn, which it doesn't in the Mozart. The Mozart Requiem is a little more spaced out, you know, and sort of defined in movements. We move quite quickly from one element of text to the next in the Michael Haydn. So actually, tempo setting is quite a challenge in that because there are some bits of the music that I think work very well at one speed, and then you suddenly get to the next bit and you think, oh I'm too fast! So you must have a long arch in mind when you're beginning on a movement in the Michael Haydn.
Alan McLellan So the challenges of the Mozart are completely, completely different, and partly because it's so well known and there's so many different opinions about how to perform it.
Jonathan Cohen Yes. And of course, we're doing the [Mozart] Requiem in the Robert Levin version, which is, I think, a new thing for H+H—I could be wrong about that. But I think it's a very interesting version that Robert Levin's done, with great respect, actually, for Süssmayr and for Mozart. There's so many beautiful, transparent textures. I think he's gone back to the drawing board in respect of the orchestration.
Alan McLellan When we think of these completions, we think about his students, the people that he knew or that knew him, but in a way, it's a whole new thing to think of a modern scholar coming at this music. And yet, as you say, there's so much respect.
Jonathan Cohen Yeah, he's really done it in a way where he's very respectful. He says in his forward to it that he wants to do the least possible, actually, which I think is fantastic. He doesn't want to put a stamp on it saying, "I'm going to make my my thing." And I think there are very, very many tender moments. It's great, actually, to restore the fugues because there's fugues at the end of each section which he put back into the correct tradition of that kind of church music in Salzburg.
Alan McLellan Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. And I understand there's this "Amen" fugue that he believes is part of the original Requiem. So that's...
Jonathan Cohen Yeah, and the "Hosanna" fugues of course as well. And... Yeah, there's a lot of fugues in this music [Cohen chuckles].
Alan McLellan Yeah, which always makes me think of Bach, of course.
Jonathan Cohen Sure! I mean, actually some of the "Hosanna" D Major fugues are a bit like Bach, I think. And you've got some very much, like, Handel in the Messiah, just the very similar [Cohen sings "And with His stripes we are healed" fugue theme]. It's a very similar kind of fugue subject that I think Mozart takes.
Alan McLellan Yeah, it's wonderful to hear those kind of resonances. And Michael Haydn also had some reverence for Bach. At least, I think there's some German music in there.
Jonathan Cohen Right. I mean, everyone will know that Michael Haydn was Joseph's younger brother. And there's a very interesting anecdote I was reading about the other day that they were both choristers in Vienna. And actually, it was Michael Haydn that was deemed the super-talented chorister. And of course, his church music was revered by his older brother Joseph, who thought that his church music composition was better than his own.
Alan McLellan It's amazing how things change and opinions change over these years. I wanted to talk to you about the "Love, Handel" concerts. Can you give us some idea of what we're going to be hearing on that?
Jonathan Cohen I can say a little bit about that, yes. We are going to be performing these Italian cantatas of Handel: Il delirio amoroso and Tra le fiamme, which he wrote when he was visiting Italy when he was a young man. It was a very fertile period for Handel. He was learning a lot, and his music is extraordinarily creative. In the orchestra, you have all these solos popping up. There's a cello solo, there's an oboe solo, there's a viol de gamba solo. It's a sort of panoply of colors and creative ideas. And very lucky to have Joélle Harvey with us, who's just a wonderful Handelian singer. So I'm really looking forward to that.
Alan McLellan It should be a fantastic concert. Well, Jonathan Cohen, thank you so much. And we're really looking forward to hearing these two Requiems on WCRB In Concert.
Jonathan Cohen Thanks very much, Alan. Good to talk.