Our Spring 2000 concert features two very different pieces – the well known and much loved Mozart Requiem, and a more modern but interesting piece by a Polish composer - Szymanowski's Stabat Mater.

The Requiem Mass was Mozart’s last work, written in 1791 and left incomplete at his death. The strange circumstances of its composition have given it at times a legendary aura.

It was commissioned by one Count Walsegg as a requiem for his wife. Possibly he intended to pass it off as his own work. Hence the well-known story of the mysterious gaunt messenger, dressed in grey, who seemed to the composer, like an emissary from another world. Whether or not it is true that the sick Mozart saw the commission as a presentiment of his own death, the work has an awesome power. Its sheer beauty and intensity have ensured it a leading place in the choral repertory from the start, in spite of its unfinished state.

Controversy has long raged about precisely how much is the fruit of Mozart’s own pen and how much the work of his pupil Franz Xavier Süssmayer who completed it at the request of Mozart’s widow. The first two movements are entirely Mozart’s. As for the rest, probably only the "Pleni sunt coeli", "Hosanna" and "Benedictus" contain significant portions composed by Süssmayer, and even these may, in varying degrees, have been sketched by Mozart. Süssmayer had a more substantial hand in completing the orchestration, albeit to Mozart’s sketches.

The orchestration of the Requiem heightens its dark and sombre effect: strings and organ are joined by basset-horns (a form of clarinet), bassoons, trumpets, trombones and timpani.

The Hymn Stabat Mater, attributed to the thirteenth-century writer Jacopone da Todi, was officially integrated into the Roman Catholic liturgy in 1727. This supplicatory prayer to the Virgin Mary has been an inspiration to many composers from Palestrina and Pergolesi, Verdi and Dvorak, to Poulenc and Penderecki.

Szymanowski was the foremost Polish composer of this century. Born in the Ukraine, his musical style was the result of diverse influences: Polish folk-music, the music of the Orthodox Liturgy, the piano music of Scriabin and Chopin, as well as the orchestral works of Strauss, Reger, Wagner and Debussy. His setting of the Stabat Mater, written in 1925-1926, was the result of a commission from Princess Edmond de Polignac. In it he continued earlier efforts to create a Polish national style, welding together folk material and stylised versions of early church music to produce a highly original work of great power and atmosphere. The piece was originally composed to a Polish translation of the Stabat Mater, though we shall perform the work using the usual Latin text.

We are proud to announce that the soloists who will be performing for us are:

Helen Groves (Soprano), Emily Bauer-Jones (Alto), Allan Adams (Tenor) and Paul Keohone (Bass) and that we will be singing, as usual, under the baton of Nicholas Steinitz accompanied by the Cantata Orchestra.

TICKETS are £10; £5 for students; £9 for parties of 10 or more, and these can be purchased from H.G. Wells Suite Box Office, Hammick’s Bookshop and Surrey Music Store, Woking: Brittens Music, West Byfleet. For further information please ring 01483 767852 or 01483 829366.