Mozart Mass: Chock Full o' Carnegie

Marla Lowen

By Paul Omundson
Idea Hall

Rewind to Jan. 15, 2005 and the center of the cultural universe--New York City's Carnegie Hall. That Saturday evening a special magic happened that is unforgettable to those who experienced it.

"What an amazing performance. It had everything: A world premiere, Helmuth conducting the best in the world and a composer who is renowned for restoring Classical period music. The excitement among the musicians and the audience was palpable. It was one of the most incredible experiences I've ever had."

That's Marla Lowen's take on the world premiere of Mozart's fragmentary Mass in C minor, K. 427 restored by Robert Levin, with the Orchestra of St Luke's conducted by Oregon Bach Festival Music Director Helmuth Rilling and the Carnegie Hall Festival Chorus.

Her thoughts on the concert mirror reviewers and music critics who covered the event as well as the sizeable Oregon contingent that feted the conductor and music scholar afterwards. Marla, one of the Festival's artistic administrators, was the rehearsal pianist in New York and worked in that capacity for Helmuth at the Oregon Bach Festival from 1987-1992.

Now, fast forward to 8 p.m. Friday, June 30. That electrifying Carnegie Hall experience will be replicated as the kick-off event for the 2006 Oregon Bach Festival. It's almost as if Chock Full o' Nuts, the favorite coffee of many New Yorkers, were to fill the cups of Full City-swilling Eugeneans.

And if this is too irreverent an analogy, let's just leave it musically and delight in anticipation of a very special evening that mirrors Carnegie Hall at the Hult:

-Helmuth will again be at the podium.
-One of the New York premiere's four soloists, tenor James Taylor, will again perform.
-Robert Levin, who was universally lauded for his restoration of the piece, will give a pre-concert lecture, just as he did at Carnegie Hall.
-A number of Oregon Bach Festival Chorus and Orchestra members who will play June 30 also performed at the premiere.

To Marla, one of the most fascinating aspects of the restoration is how Levin's completion fits into the work and changes the architecture of the piece.

"It's an entirely new and different work," she said. "Robert took little hints that Mozart left, scraps of paper that had references to the text, and based on all these pieces he put the puzzle together. His scholarship and work were phenomenal. I believe he reconstructed this absolutely the same way Mozart would have if he had completed the Mass."

Levin, a renowned pianist and musicologist, who has recorded many of Bach's keyboard works with Helmuth, delights in playing the role of musical sleuth. For the Mass in C minor, he tracked down clues in Mozart's haunts in Augsburg, Vienna, Krakow and Berlin. The effort included the discovery of a missing Mass section and intense lab analyses of manuscript papers so he could identify inks used at different periods in Mozart's life.

Levin resonates with this particular Mass because Mozart didn't write it on commission for the emperor or any other sponsor. It was one of the few works that he wrote for himself and his family. As a result of that, Levin stressed, it truly represents art for art's sake, and indeed, faith for faith's sake.

The Mozart premiere in New York was a triumph for Rilling. At a reception in Carnegie Hall immediately following, the maestro told a group of 200 friends from Germany, New York, and the Festival that on that magical night, "the spirit of Oregon had filled Carnegie Hall."

Be sure to circle June 30 for your calendar, when a bit of Carnegie Hall will come to Eugene.

Blogger Paul Omundson is a music fan who writes for Los Angeles-based Idea Hall.