Sunday 1st September 2019

Afternoon and Evening

Come and Sing Mozart’s Requiem with Peebles Orchestra. No matter what your experience (complete beginner or confident singer), you can take part in performing one of the most extraordinary and moving masterpieces of classical music. As part of a large chorus of singers, you will experience the chance to make beautiful music surrounded by a community of like-minded enthusiasts.
 
Rehearse throughout the day with a professional conductor and soloists, and then perform in the evening. After rehearsals you can enjoy a social buffet meal with the orchestra before gathering to perform the Requiem to a public audience.  At the concert you can also listen to the Orchestra playing Mozart Serenade in D, K185.

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This event is presented as part of the Creative Peebles Festival 2019.  Read more about the many events being held in Peebles in August/September as part of the Festival.

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Peebles Orchestra are delighted to offer this opportunity to all, thanks to funding received from the National Lottery Awards for All.
 

Details

Rehearsals start in the Burgh Hall, Peebles, at 1pm.
Concert: 7.00pm.

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Tickets:

• Singers: £10 (concessions £7)

• Optional score hire: £2 (concessions £1)

• Optional buffet meal £3 (concessions £2)

• Audience only ticket: £6 (concessions £4)

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Buy a ticket online

For the singers follow this link.
To attend the performance only, follow this link.
 

The story behind the Requiem

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While working on The Magic Flute, Mozart received a commission from a stranger to compose a requiem, but under conditions of secrecy.  Count von Walsegg wanted a requiem for his wife, to be played every year on her anniversary – and some have suggested he might have wanted to pass it off as his own work.

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With the encouragement of his own wife, Mozart accepted the challenge, and was paid a part-fee, with the rest to follow on completion. The deadline, according to one report, was four weeks. But Mozart had to go to Prague to conduct Tito – and the deadline continued to hang over him.  Mozart started work on 8 October 1791.

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On 20 November, he took to his bed with a worsening of the spells of ill health he had suffered during the last year. On 3 December, his condition appeared to improve – and the next day a few close friends gathered to sing over with him part of the still-unfinished Requiem.

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That evening, Mozart’s illness worsened, and just before 1am on 5 December, he died, aged 35 with an initial cause of death registered as ‘severe military fever’.

 

At Mozart’s death, only the Introitus of the Requiem was fully scored.  All the other movements, from the Kyrie fugue to the end of the Hostias, were only sketched. Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who wrote the recitatives for La clemenza di Tito, completed the orchestration of much of the Requiem.