Vancouver USA Singers present Mozart’s Requiem

It’s one of the tastiest mash-ups of myth in all musical history: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart either was poisoned, impoverished or simply overworked to death at the tragically young age of 35. Aware he was dying, he struggled but failed to finish a monumental Requiem Mass in time for his own funeral.

In the movie “Amadeus,” it’s Mozart’s musical rival, the insanely jealous Antonio Salieri, who drives the young genius to an exhausted grave through labor on the Mass — pushing him to compose himself literally to death in 1791. It’s the perfect artistic crime.

It’s also fiction. But the actual facts are also pretty mysterious: a Viennese aristocrat whose wife died young secretly commissioned the Mass, meaning to pass it off as his own work. Mozart’s health was already failing — an actual malady has never been identified, but it’s known he had a high fever — and after he died, his widow hired a pupil to finish the Mass in its original style. She also hid the fact that the final product wasn’t entirely her late husband’s, because that would have hurt publication and concert ticket sales; while she was at it, apparently, she also invented other myths that have surrounded Mozart’s final work, and final end, ever since.

Despite all that, you can shrug off any reservations about the piece’s provenance. Even the ghost-written music in the Requiem very likely originated in Mozart’s own brain; while the plot of “Amadeus” is fiction, what’s known fact is that the composer really did finish and polish vast quantities of music inside his head before ever bothering to write it down. Any wonder that he’d inspire jealous rage, whether fictional or real, in other musicians?

Choir steps up

You can consider these mysteries while hearing the Vancouver USA Singers and a 21-piece orchestra perform this true masterpiece of choral music March 11 and 12.

“It is my favorite choral work of all time. It has this immense humanity. Mozart was writing his feelings about life and death. Truly a life-changing musical experience,” said choir director Jana Hart.

That’s not just true for listeners bathed in the Requiem’s gigantic soundscape — it’s also a benchmark for the singers and musicians performing it. Hart said she’s never been prouder of the Vancouver USA Singers than in the windup to this show; she’s conducted the Requiem four separate times, she said, and always had to hire professional singers to carry off the “extremely difficult” solos.

Not this time. All soloists are members of the choir, “which shows a remarkable level of talent,” Hart said. “The choir has really stepped up to a whole new level.”

If you need any more proof that Vancouver singers are talented as can be, look no further than this new news: Hart recently received an invitation for the choir to return to New York City’s Carnegie Hall in April 2018 to sing a program of music written and conducted by contemporary American composer Eric Whitacre.

Happy birthday, Henry

Also on the program this weekend is a notable encore and birthday. For its 50th anniversary in 2013, the Vancouver USA Singers commissioned a new choral work by opera composer Henry Mollicone, a friend of Hart’s who lives in San Jose, Calif. Mollicone traveled to Vancouver to hear the 2013 debut of his “All God’s Children,” and wound up unexpectedly conducting one of that weekend’s performances.

Mollicone is too busy these days to visit Vancouver for another performance of “All God’s Children,” Hart said. “Henry is a hot commodity right now,” with two new operas and a string quartet all headed for the stage soon, she said. Nonetheless, she said, this reprise of “All God’s Children” will be dedicated to Mollicone for his 70th birthday.