Program Notes

Poet and Peasant Overture

Franz von Suppé 1819-1895
Poet and Peasant Overture is the kind of piece that reminds us music tells stories just as vividly as any history book. Franz von Suppé, a 19th-century composer with roots in the diverse Austrian Empire, grew up surrounded by different cultures and musical traditions. Although his family once nudged him toward law, his heart clearly sided with music—and history is full of people who followed that inner calling instead of the safe path. Suppé found his way to Vienna, soaking up the operatic styles of Rossini, Donizetti, and Verdi, and went on to help shape Viennese operetta—the lively, humorous cousin of grand opera and the ancestor of today's musicals. He wrote nearly fifty operettas packed with melody, wit, and theatrical sparkle, the kind of works that entertained everyday people, not just elites in gilded halls.

His Poet and Peasant Overture (1845–46) is a wonderful example of how music can paint a scene and invite us to imagine lives different from our own. The plot centers on a young peasant who is also a poet, wooing a girl whose guardian is opposed to their marriage. It begins with a grand, serious brass chorale, almost like the opening of an epic tale. Then comes a beautiful, singing cello solo—warm and reflective—that suggests open fields and quiet countryside. One might ask: is this the "poet" dreaming, or the "peasant" at peace in the rural world? Suppé then shifts us through dances, waltzes, and playful turns that feel like characters entering and exiting a stage. The energetic finale races ahead with joyful momentum, leaving listeners smiling. Many people first recognize this music from classic cartoons, where its dramatic contrasts matched the action on screen. But beyond nostalgia, this overture is really about storytelling—about contrast between city and country, thought and action, humor and heart. And just like in history, those contrasts are where the most interesting human stories often live.

Adoration

Florence Price 1887-1953
Florence Price's life reads the so many other Americans who struggle to overcome and achieve: talent meeting barrier, and perseverance reshaping what seems possible. Born in Little Rock in 1887, she was a musical prodigy who entered the New England Conservatory at just 15. Yet her career unfolded in a world that often judged her by race and gender before hearing a single note. She taught, performed, and composed anyway—and in 1933 made history when the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony in E minor, the first time a major orchestra performed a symphony by an African-American woman (a work this orchestra has proudly shared in a past season). She wrote in many forms—symphonies, songs, piano works—often weaving in spirituals and dance rhythms rooted in African-American tradition. After her death, much of her music was neglected, but the rediscovery of her manuscripts has helped restore her to her rightful place in American music history.

Her brief piece Adoration (c. 1951) shows another side of her voice. Found in her abandoned home in 2009, it feels almost like a historical artifact and a personal diary at once. Lasting only about three minutes, it has been called a "musical prayer." Originally for organ, its simple ABA form carries a hymn-like melody that returns again and again with gentle warmth. The music doesn't demand attention—it invites reflection. One might ask, as we often do in studying the past: what quiet strengths go unnoticed in their own time? In Adoration, Price offers a possible answer—a moment of calm devotion that still speaks clearly today.

The Gift of Life

John Rutter 1945-
John Rutter is one of those composers who understands that music can teach wonder the way a great teacher or a great story can. Born in London in 1945 and formed in the rich choral tradition of Cambridge, he has spent his life writing music that choirs love to sing and audiences instantly feel. His melodies are warm, his harmonies clear, and his goal often seems simple but profound: to help people pause and notice beauty. In that sense, his music asks a very human question: how often do we stop to appreciate the world we live in?

His 2015 work The Gift of Life explores that question directly. "O all ye works of the Lord," bursts open with joyful energy, calling all of nature into a chorus of praise; it feels like watching the world wake up and realizing we are part of it. "The gift of each day" brings the focus close to home. Gentle and lyrical, it reminds us that life's meaning often lives in ordinary mornings and quiet gratitude. "O Lord, how manifold are thy works," steps back in awe, with broad, majestic lines that suggest the order and richness of creation—less excitement, more reflection. If history teaches us to value the past, Rutter's music gently teaches us to value the present—the small, daily gift of being alive.

Requiem

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 1756-1791
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg. His mother was Anna Maria Pertl, and his father, Leopold Mozart, was a well-known music performer and teacher in Salzburg.

Leopold began teaching the older sister, Nannerl, the keyboard when she was five. As Nannerl practiced, three-year-old Wolfgang watched and later experimented on his own. Soon it became apparent that both children were prodigies. Prodigies were a "hot ticket," drawing large audiences and income throughout Europe, and multiple musical tours made up much of Mozart's early youth.

Alongside performance tours, young Amadeus showed growing ability in composition. Leopold saw this creative potential in his son's messy early violin work. By eight, Mozart had completed his first symphony, and compositions seemed to flow spontaneously from his imagination.

Mozart advanced through official positions in Salzburg, Paris, and then Vienna during its Golden Age of Enlightenment. Europe at that time was swept by new ideas in art, literature, fashion, music, and human rights. The United States was born with its "all men created equal" ethos, while the French Revolution, with its cry of "Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood," tore itself apart. In that changing world, and especially in Vienna, a new creative power in music emerged, and Mozart was at its center.

His life was tumultuous, marked by both great successes and painful failures. He composed and performed across all musical genres; chamber, solo, symphonic, varied vocal works, and he transformed the opera of his day. From all this comes tonight's masterwork: the Requiem, the last work of Mozart's short but intensely lived career.

A Requiem Mass is a Catholic service to remember and memorialize someone who has died. Setting this mass to music has been undertaken by major composers from the Renaissance to the present. While the text is standardized, musical settings vary widely.

When Mozart began his Requiem in the summer of 1791, he could not have known it would become one of the most enduring choral works—or that it would be linked with his own death. The anonymous commission, sent by Count Franz von Walsegg to honor his late wife, arrived as Mozart's health declined that autumn. Frail, exhausted, and aware of his mortality, he reportedly confided that he felt as though he were writing the music for himself. Whether literal or not, this intimacy with death permeates the score.

At his death on December 5, 1791, the work was nearly—but not completely—finished. His widow, Constanze, facing financial uncertainty, sought help to complete the score so the commission could be delivered. Ultimately Mozart's student Franz Süssmayr completed the orchestration and finished the piece, drawing on Mozart's sketches and conversations and reusing Mozart's material in later movements.

Scholars continue to debate how much of the final work is Süssmayr's and how much is Mozart's—the so-called "Requiem-Streit." Critics have noted voice-leading and orchestration errors typical of Süssmayr and absent from Mozart. A fragment of an Amen fugue in Mozart's hand, discovered in 1967, spurred renewed interest, and Robert Levin later completed the fugue and corrected mistakes while preserving most of the traditional version. Levin aimed to revise as little as possible, observing Mozartian character, texture, and structure.

Levin's completion emphasizes Mozart's stylistic signatures: a lighter orchestral balance, restored order, and inclusion of the Amen fugue. What we perform tonight reflects what many scholars consider the most accurate available completion.

Though the Requiem was a commissioned work and features in the dramatic masterpiece and historical fantasy, Amadeus, it transcends any soundtrack. It addresses the struggles of life and questions of eternity. Like all great art, the Requiem is both biographical and universal—about the creator and about all of us. Tonight, Mozart speaks with us.