Mozart's Prague
Mozart and the Klementinum
Mozart's Prague links: his January 1787 visit to the Klementinum, the Don Giovanni premiere that October, and the Mozart pieces in the concert.
Reserve your seat in the chapel ↗Mozart's first visit to the Klementinum
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who lived from 1756 to 1791, first visited the Klementinum on 13 January 1787 and returned several times. Prague City Tourism notes that during one visit, students from the local general seminary reportedly played one of his symphonies for him, and Mozart replied with a performance of his own. The story is told as reported, but the visits themselves are recorded, and the complex still keeps a collection of Mozartiana.
A bust in the antechamber
In the antechamber of the Mirror Chapel stands an over-life-size bust of Mozart by Emanuel Max. It greets concert-goers before they enter the room, and it fits the place: the Klementinum keeps a collection of Mozartiana, and Prague City Tourism records his repeated visits. The bust is worth a moment on your way in, particularly if the programme for your date includes one of his pieces and you want to put a face to the music.
Prague and Don Giovanni
Mozart's connection to Prague goes beyond his Klementinum visits. The success of Le nozze di Figaro led to a commission from the resident opera company of Prague, and the result was Don Giovanni, his second collaboration with the librettist Da Ponte. It premiered to acclaim in Prague in October 1787. Nine months earlier, in January of that year, he had already visited the Klementinum, so the city knew him as a visitor before it knew the opera.
The Lacrimosa in the programme
The Lacrimosa from Mozart's Requiem appears in both programmes shown for the Mirror Chapel concert. The Requiem was left unfinished when he died in 1791 at the age of 35. His manuscript shows the opening movement complete and drafts of others, and the Lacrimosa stops after eight bars of his own. Others completed the work. It is the most sombre piece in an otherwise light hour, which is why it stands out when the soprano sings it.
The Figaro overture and the G minor symphony
One of the programmes includes the overture to Le nozze di Figaro, the opera whose success led to the Prague commission. The other pieces from Mozart's pen are the first movement of his Symphony No. 40 in G minor, entered in his catalogue on 25 July 1788, and the Lacrimosa. A Mozart overture, a symphony movement and a requiem fragment show three sides of his writing in one hour: comic, restless and solemn.
Listening for Mozart in the room
Mozart's music rewards a small room. The Mirror Chapel's 170 seats put you close to a soprano and a violin, and the clarity he is known for suits a chamber group. If you know only one Mozart piece, let it be the Lacrimosa, and listen for the rocking rhythm in the strings before the voice enters. If your date's programme includes the Figaro overture, listen for how quickly it moves, and how little it needs to say. Then look at the room: the same century, the same taste for gilt.
Prague again in 1791
In 1791, the year he died, Mozart went to Prague again. Accounts of the Requiem place its commission shortly before that trip, and say he began composing the work after he returned. After his death, memorial services and concerts in Vienna and Prague were well attended, and his reputation rose sharply. If the Lacrimosa is in your programme, you will hear it in the city where Don Giovanni had been acclaimed four years before, and where his memory was marked in music soon after he died.
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