On April 12th, at the Centro de Artes Escénicas y de la Música, the Orquesta Clásica del Teatro Liceo de Salamanca will perform Mozart’s Requiem alongside the Coro de Cámara de la USAL. The program will also feature the motet Ave verum corpus, a small choral gem, as well as one of Bach’s fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier that Mozart transcribed for strings, preceded by preludes of his own creation, showcasing his interest in counterpoint, evident in his funeral mass, particularly in the impressive double fugue of the «Kyrie.»
The Orquesta Clásica del Teatro Liceo will be conducted by Alfonso Sebastián Alegre and the Coro de Cámara de la USAL by Bernardo García-Bernalt. The concert will also include performances by soprano Cristina Teijeiro, alto Marta Infante, tenor Ariel Hernández Roque, and bass Jesús García Aréjula.
The Orquesta Clásica del Teatro Liceo gave its first concert in January 2022 with the aim of adhering to the interpretive criteria and orchestral lineup of late 18th and early 19th-century repertoire, while also having the flexibility to delve into later repertoire, especially for chamber orchestras.
The Coro de Cámara de la USAL was founded in 1984 as a group dedicated to Iberian polyphony from the 16th to 18th centuries. Since then, they have worked intensively on disseminating and studying this repertoire, resulting in hundreds of concerts in various auditoriums and festivals in Spain and other European countries, many of which have featured the «re-premiere» of unpublished scores from this period.
Mozart’s Requiem
Mozart’s Requiem is shrouded in mystery and intrigue, making it as fascinating as the music itself. In 1791, while working on The Magic Flute, Mozart received an anonymous commission to compose a requiem mass. By the end of that year, although seriously ill, Mozart began work on it but only completed the «Lacrimosa.» He passed away on December 5th at the age of 36, and his wife, Constanze, asked Franz Xaver Süssmayr, a student and collaborator, to complete the work. Since then, there have been several attempts at reconstruction, with the most recent being the 2024 edition by Howard Arman, which will be presented by the Orquesta Clásica del Teatro Liceo in this concert.
The program also includes the motet Ave Verum Corpus and a fugue from Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, transcribed by Mozart himself for orchestra.
Southern Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra
On Friday, April 11th, at the CAEM, the Southern Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the British Duncan Ward, will perform Elgar’s famous Enigma Variations as the culmination of a program that opens with one of the most eclectic composers on the current compositional scene, the Dutch Joey Roukens. His Distorted Fantasia, commissioned in 2021 by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Sweelinck Foundation, is a reinterpretation through the 21st-century lens of the Dorian-mode Fantasia, SWWV 259 by the great composer and organist Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, a Dutchman who laid the foundations of European keyboard music around 1600.
German violinist Veronika Eberle will complete this program by performing Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, premiered in 1936 in Barcelona after the composer’s death as part of the programming of the International Society for Contemporary Music Festival.
Tickets on Sale
Tickets for each of these concerts are priced at 12, 16, and 20 euros and can be purchased starting this Wednesday at the Liceo box office or online at www.ciudaddecultura.org. Students from conservatories and the Municipal School of Music are eligible for a 50% discount at the box office.
A combined ticket for both concerts is also available to the public, priced at 14, 22, and 30 euros.