CLASSICAL CONNECTIONS
LISTENER’S GUIDE
Mozart
&
Sleeping
Giant
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
This is exciting!
That’s how I began
the Listener’s Guide for
the closing concert of
last season’s Classical
Connections series. The
subject was one of the
fruits of our three-year
Music Alive residency
with composer Stella
Sung, her one-act opera
The Book Collector. It
was a spine-chilling,
mind-blowing end to the
DPAA’s Schuster Center
season.
I’m reusing those
“This is exciting!” words
because (a) we’ll be
exploring the fruits of
another Music Alive
residency and (b) it’s
gonna be exciting.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
FRANZ SÜSSMAYR
postmodern take on Mozart’s
Requiem. They were keeping
everything that Mozart
actually wrote, but the rest
was up for grabs. Some of the
music filled in by Mozart’s
friend Franz Süssmayr would
stay, but they’d complete the
rest of the piece in their
own way.
Sounds crazy, right?
But we had a fabulous
experience in 2006 when
we commissioned composer
Robert Xavier Rodríguez to
complete Mozart’s other great
unfinished masterpiece,
the Mass in C Minor, so the
Sleeping Giant plan for the
Requiem sounded intriguing
to me.
After Albany premiered
the piece in April 2015, the
Sleeping Giants sent me
In June 2014 the
SLEEPING GIANT
a copy of the score and a
five organizations
recording of the performance. It was
participating in Music Alive (the Seattle
really cool, a beautiful and haunting
Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the
mix combining the old music we know
Pacific Symphony, the Albany Symphony,
and love with incredible, moving,
and the DPAA) met in Cleveland. We
modern-day stuff.
shared experiences from the first year of
I thought, “We gotta bring this to
the project, discussed future plans, and
Dayton!”
did the networking thing.
One idea in particular captured my
imagination. Sleeping Giant, the sixcomposer team working with the Albany
Symphony, was planning their own
Today we do.
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
A Requiem Revisited
by Neal Gittleman
day musicologists couldn’t figure it
out). The count did plan to claim the
work as his own. That’s all true. The
Amadeus. The Miloš Forman movie
rest of the Requiem story in Amadeus
of the Peter Shaffer play. About two
comes from Peter Shaffer’s vivid
hours in. An obviously sick Mozart is
imagination!
seated at a table, drinking and com Mozart worked on the Requiem
posing. Judging from the soundtrack,
between July and November 1791 and
he’s writing his Piano Concerto in D
Minor. Suddenly there’s a knock on the died in December with the score less
than half-finished. Mozart’s widow,
door. Mozart opens it and . . .
Constanze, then engaged his friend
. . . there’s a mysterious masked
Franz Süssmayr to fill in the missing
man dressed all in black. “Herr Mozart,
parts so that Count Walsegg could get
I have come to commission work from
his piece and Constanze could receive
you,” says the scary guy. “What work?”
the final payment.
asks the spooked composer. “A mass for
the dead.” “What dead? Who is dead?” Süssmayr’s completion is one-third
all-Mozart, one-third Mozart with
“A man who deserved a requiem mass
Süssmayr filling in what was missing,
and never got one.”
and one-third all-Süssmayr (perhaps
So begins the saga of the Mozart
based on some sketches Mozart left
Requiem.
behind at his death). For the final
Not really!
section (Communio), where Mozart
had written nothing at all, Süssmayr
A few minutes later in Amadeus,
reprised the music of the first two
Salieri, seen years in the future,
movements (100% Mozart) with
confesses that he was behind this
different words. A kludge of an ending,
scheme: commissioning an under-thetable requiem from Mozart that Salieri perhaps, but better than an ending
would perform at Mozart’s funeral and that’s 0% Mozart!
present as his own composition.
Never happened. Not that way,
at least.
Mozart did get a commission for
a requiem mass, from Count WalseggStuppach. The commission was a
secret (but not so secret that modern-
The Süssmayr-completed edition
is now the standard version of the
Requiem, although many critics and
musicologists rail at things Süssmayr
did. But Süssmayr’s version isn’t the
only one. Several modern editors have
reworked the Süssmayr completion in
an attempt to fix things they found
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
won’t hear any of Mozart’s Introitus.
(Later you’ll hear Mozart’s music in the
Lux Aeterna section at the end of the
Requiem.) Instead, this is an entirely
new piece of music based on some
imaginative wordplay.
lacking, particularly details in the
orchestration. All these modern
editions are designed to sound like
Mozart.
But Sleeping Giant had a
different idea!
Instead of a Mozart Requiem
that tries to sound as if Mozart wrote
it all, Messrs. Andres, Cerrone, Cooper,
Hearne, Honstein, and Norman
(see why it’s easier to just call them
Sleeping Giant?) went in a completely
different direction. What if you filled
in the missing parts with new music,
so it’s clear where the Mozart ends and
the non-Mozart begins? What if you
did a musical equivalent to I.M. Pei’s
glass pavilion for the Louvre or Norman
Foster’s Hearst Tower in New York
City—modern-day add-ons to classic
old buildings?
You’d end up with something
really cool!
Here are a few of
the really cool results
of the Sleeping Giants
mixing Mozart’s late 18thcentury style with their
early 21st-century
style . . .
Ted Hearne: Introit[Us]
Ted Hearne’s opening
movement is perhaps the
most radical of all. You
The Introitus of the Requiem
liturgy is sung as the clergy enters at
the beginning of the Mass for the Dead.
(“Introitus” is Latin for “entrance”.)
Hearne takes the word literally. At
the beginning of the piece the entire
orchestra is offstage except for one
trombone player. Instead of the clergy
entering during the first movement,
it’s the orchestra (and conductor) who
enter!
The word “introitus” also suggests
the English word “introduce”, hence
Ted’s Introit[Us] title. The movement
literally introduces the musicians of
the orchestra. By name. You’ll hear the
soloists and chorus sing the names of
the musicians one by
one as they enter and
begin to play. The music
is all
contemporary, although
once the chorus starts
singing the names
of the string players,
you’ll start to hear
musical figurations and
harmonies borrowed
from Mozart’s Introitus.
TED HEARNE
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
It’s a wonderful,
imaginative idea,
although I wonder if Ted
Hearne really thought it
through. He wrote this
movement for the Albany
Symphony, so he used
their names. If he wants
other orchestras to play
the piece (which he
surely does), he’ll have
to revise the Introit[Us]
for every performance!
We’ve sent Ted the
roster of musicians
scheduled to play ours,
and he’s cheerfully
rewritten the piece so it
really is Introit-US!
CHRISTOPHER CERRONE
improvisatory gestures
from solo strings and
clarinets with the choir
sometimes singing,
sometimes contributing
“indecipherable fast
whispering”! You hear
the familiar MozartSüssmayr music
through a hazy static
of confusing modern
sounds.
Timo Andres:
Lacrimosa Fugue
The Lacrimosa is
the final section of the
Requiem’s Dies Irae
sequence. It ends with
the word “Amen”. But
Christopher Cerrone:
Mozart never got to the
Confutatis
Amen. There are only
two bars of the strings’
Another great (and
accompaniment figure
imaginary) scene from
plus the chorus’s first six
Amadeus: Mozart, on his
TIMO ANDRES
bars. Everything else in
deathbed, dictates the
the movement was by Süssmayr, who
Confutatis to Salieri. The Confutatis
continued along the lines that Mozart
is an amazing movement, alternating
had begun. For the Amen, Mozart
powerful, angry music (“the cursed
likely would have written an elaborate
have been rebuked and sentenced to
Amen fugue. Rather than guess what
acrid flames”) with a serene, floating
Mozart might have done, Süssmayr
melody (“call me with the blessed”).
took a humbler route and wrote a plain
Mozart’s opening music is
vanilla Amen like what you hear at the
chaotic—in a late 18th-century sort
end of most hymns. Alas, that means
of way. To that, Chris has added
that the end of the Dies Irae sequence
some 21st-century chaos: wild,
is a bit of a letdown.
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
Mozart and Süssmayr’s
fugue. Many modernday composers enjoy
messing with our sense
of time. As the chorus
and orchestra perform
the repeat of Mozart’s
fast and energetic Quam
Olim Abrahae fugue, the
performers gradually
change to a glacially
slow rendition of the
ROBERT HONSTEIN
fugue’s last five bars.
In Robert’s own words,
“The slowed-down music
is a memory of music
we’ve already heard, but
it’s barely recognizable.
Robert Honstein:
The long drawn-out
Quam Olim Abrahae
chords become a
massive wall of sound,
The Offertorium
swallowing the Mozart
section of the Requiem
whole and leaving the
is in four parts: (1)
audience in a suspended
Domine Jesu Christe,
space, familiar but
Rex Gloriae (Lord Jesus
JACOB COOPER
strange.” As the piece
Christ, King of Glory),
(2) Quam Olim Abrahae Promisisti (As subsides to its conclusion, members
Was Promised to Abraham), (3) Hostias of the orchestra, one by one, begin
playing Jacob Cooper’s gently pulsating
et Preces Tibi Domine (We Offer You
Sanctus movement. This creates a long,
Sacrifices and Prayers, Lord), (4) an
exact repeat of the Quam Olim Abrahae slow cross-fade, longer and slower than
any DJ can pull off!
section, a vigorous fugue in which
Mozart wrote all the choral parts and
Jacob Cooper: Sanctus
Süssmayr filled in the rest.
Mozart composed absolutely no
Sleeping Giant leaves the first
music for the Sanctus section of the
three sections alone, but then Robert
Requiem. The music we’re used to
Honstein goes to town on the repeat of
Not in Sleeping
Giant’s version! Timo
Andres keeps Süssmayr’s
simple Amen but then
segues into a beautiful,
slow instrumental
fugue based on
fragments taken from
the Lacrimosa music
that Mozart did write.
Wolfgang’s spirit shines
through, even as
Timo’s harmonies and
sonorities go to places
Mozart never imagined
and build to a powerful
finish.
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
holy, Lord God of hosts.
Heaven and earth are full
of your glory!”?
hearing at this point in
the Mozart Requiem is all
by Franz Süssmayr. Here,
for the Sleeping Giant
composers, anything
goes!
Perhaps a great deal!
Andrew Norman:
Communio
Here’s Jacob Cooper
describing what he
For his Cum Sancto
did for the Sanctus
Spiritu finale, Süssmayr
movement: “All of the
set the liturgically
standard Sanctus text is
correct words to a
distilled to the opening
note-for-note reprise
ANDREW NORMAN
word, and all harmony
of the all-Mozart Kyrie
is telescoped to the D-major sonority
movement. Andrew Norman starts his
that opens Mozart’s movement. Time
Cum Sancto Spiritu the same way,
suspends, a listener reflects.”
except for the trombones, who are
silent in Mozart’s Kyrie. Andrew has
Cooper’s Sanctus is perhaps the
them gently blow air through their
most radical section of the Sleeping
horns—no pitch, just the sound of
Giant Requiem. It’s certainly the
their breath, slightly amplified by the
furthest in sound from what we’re
bells of their instruments. Then the
accustomed to hearing: about 10
bassoons and clarinets start doing the
minutes of a gently undulating, slowly
same thing. And gradually the strings
shifting D-major sonority. Along the
stop playing Mozart’s notes and begin
way, lots of unusual things happen:
to move their bows in such a way as to
improvised musical gestures; bassoon
create a breathy air-sound, too. Finally
players buzzing long, slow glissandos
the choir begins to audibly inhale
with their reeds; trombonists using
“flap tongue” technique, which creates and exhale, and Mozart’s Requiem
percussive, popping sounds; choristers evaporates into the sound of the entire
ensemble breathing as one. And then
slowly sliding from one note to the
silence.
next. The result is a glowing swirl
of sound.
And what does all that have to do with
the ancient liturgical text, “Holy, holy
See, I told you it was cool!
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
What the Heck’s a Sleeping Giant, Anyway?
to me was how through the ritual
of performance over 200 years, or
through the grandiosity of the Classical
tradition, the reception of the work may
have become totally separated from the
SLEEPING GIANT
experience of an individual confronting
death. Could an irreverent jolt of the
Simple answer: Sleeping Giant is a
material, by us lowly contemporary
collective of six composers who have
separate careers but come together from composers, somehow channel the
grossness or sadness or mundanity we
time to time to do projects together.
Let’s have them tell us a bit more about feel when we are around those who are
how this works—and about their unique dying? That was the type of question
I was asking while undertaking this
take on the Mozart Requiem . . .
project.
Timo Andres on Sleeping Giant:
Robert Honstein on working with
Sleeping Giant formed more as a
Mozart’s austere instrumentation:
group of friends than as a professional
Standard orchestra sounds like standard
endeavor. We’d all either just moved
orchestra. The limited orchestration of
or were planning on moving to New
Mozart’s Requiem guarantees a certain
York after grad school, and realized
novelty and I liked that. I felt like I
we missed the day-to-day exchange of
automatically had a slightly unusual
ideas, advice, and camaraderie we’d
come to rely on. So we thought banding orchestral sound built into the piece
before I even had to write a note.
together to present concerts of our
music might be a nice continuation
Timo Andres on revisiting (and
of that. After a couple of years, we
perhaps revising) their score before its
decided that the concert format we’d
second performance, here in Dayton:
been presenting—a piece from each
Because of the level of detail, there are
of us, but without any common thread
always little things you want to change
between them—resulted in slightly
after the premiere. We discussed ideas
unsatisfying evenings of music. We
for specific revisions as a group. It was
wanted to challenge ourselves to create
a bit brutal, actually, to have a group of
something unified together, starting
composers suggesting that you revise
from the ground up.
your own piece! But that’s why we got
into this thing together after all. We all
Ted Hearne on “finishing” the
trust each other’s musical instincts.
Mozart Requiem: Most intriguing
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
TIMELINE ~ Sleeping Giant
World Events
1979
USSR invades Afghanistan. Hostage crisis in Tehran.
1980
Zimbabwe independence.
Ronald Reagan elected 40th U.S. President.
1982
Falkland Islands War. USA Today. First CD player sold in
Japan.
1989
USSR withdraws from Afghanistan. Berlin Wall falls.
1993
Bill Clinton becomes 42nd U.S. President.
Hubble Telescope repair.
1998
Good Friday peace treaty in Northern Ireland.
France wins World Cup.
2001
9/11 attacks in New York, Pennsylvania, and DC.
Dale Earnhardt dies at Daytona 500. Leaning Tower
of Pisa reopens after 11 years of repairs. Diamondbacks
beat Yankees in World Series Game 7.
2007
iPhone. Wii. Nancy Pelosi is first woman Speaker
of the House. The Simpsons movie.
Timo Andres
1985
Born in Palo Alto, CA.
1992
First musical composition.
2007
Studies composition at Yale
School of Music.
Christopher Cerrone
1984
Born in Huntington, NY.
1989
First piano lessons.
2007
Composition studies at Yale.
2009
Barack Obama becomes 44th U.S. President.
Sully lands on the Hudson.
2010
BP oil spill in Gulf of Mexico. Winter Olympics in
Vancouver. Brett Favre’s consecutive game streak ends.
2011
“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy repealed.
Earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
2012
Curiosity rover lands on Mars.
Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee.
2013
Boston Marathon bombing.
Snowden reveals NSA surveillance.
2014
Ebola epidemic in Africa. Malaysia Airlines Flight 370
disappears. Putin annexes Crimea. Even-numbered year,
so the Giants win the World Series.
2015
Dawn spacecraft orbits asteroid Ceres.
First gravitational waves observed.
2016
UK votes for Brexit. U.S. votes for Trump.
Cavs and Cubs beat their jinxes. Captain America edges
Rogue One for top-grossing movie.
2011
Writes piano piece It takes a
long time to become a good
composer, inspired by piano
works of Robert Schumann.
2013
Opera Invisible Cities
premieres at Union Station in
Los Angeles.
2014
2014
Composes Fugue & Emphatic
Composes Recordare and
Plagal Cadence to complete
Confutatis movements for
the Lacrimosa movement
Mozart’s Requiem. Finalist for
of Mozart’s Requiem.
Pulitzer Prize.
2015
Wins the Rome Prize in
Musical Composition.
2016
Awarded the Glenn Gould
Protégé Prize by the City of
Toronto.
CL A SSICA L CON NECT IONS L ISTENER’S GU I DE
Jacob Cooper
1980
Born in
Hastings-on-Hudson, NY.
Ted Hearne
Robert Honstein
1980
Born in Syracuse, NY.
Andrew Norman
1979
Born in Grand Rapids, MI.
1982
Born in Chicago.
1989
Begins trumpet lessons.
1993
First composition.
1994
First composition.
2001
Begins composition studies at
Yale School of Music.
2010
Creates Commencer une
autre mort , a six-minute video
inspired by the climax of
Bizet’s opera Carmen.
2014
Composes Sanctus movement
for Mozart’s Requiem.
2015
Receives a commissioning
grant from Chamber Music
America.
2007
Writes Katrina Ballads for
singers and 11 instruments
about Hurricane Katrina.
2009
Wins Amsterdam’s
Gaudeamus Prize for a
performance of movements
from Katrina Ballads.
2009
Composition studies at Yale
School of Music.
2011
Writes Night Scenes from the
Ospedale (The DPO will play it
in June 2018!).
2014
Composes Introit[Us] for
Mozart’s Requiem and The
Source, an oratorio about
Chelsea Manning.
2015
The Source CD released on
New Amsterdam Records.
2014
Composes Quam olim
Abrahae and Agnus Dei
movements for Mozart’s
Requiem.
2015
Night Scenes… CD released
by Soundspell Productions.
1998
Wins ASCAP Award for young
composers.
2009
Graduates from Yale School
of Music.
2012
Finalist for Pulitzer Prize for
The Companion Guide to
Rome.
2014
Composes Communio
movement for Mozart’s
Requiem.
2016
Named Musical America’s
Composer of the Year. Wins
Grawemeyer Award.