Mozart: Great Mass in C minor with Leimental Study Choir

Mozart's Mass in C minor, K. 427, is considered a breathtaking testimony to Mozart's freedom and genius. It is a work of great expressivity that stands out from his church music oeuvre and that of his contemporaries. The Leimental Study Choir will perform Mozart's Great Mass in C minor in St. Martin's Church in Basel on October 25 and 26, 2025 with soloists Gunta Smirnova and Serafina Giannoni (soprani), Reto Raphael Rosin (tenor), Robert Koller (bass) and the orchestra for early music, amici musici. The artistic director, Sebastian Goll, decided to perform a complete mass with original music by Mozart. Mozart's "divine-human" music alone will surprise and move you.

Mozart began composing a new mass in Vienna in the summer of 1782. On August 4, 1782, Wolfgang and Constanze Mozart married. A few days later, on August 17, 1782, Mozart wrote: "... in a word, we were created for each other - and God, who arranges everything and has therefore also arranged this, will not abandon us". Elsewhere, Mozart wrote that he had "promised in his heart that if he brought her to Salzburg as his wife, he would perform a newly composed mass there."

Mozart was obviously filled with love and believed in divine providence. It was probably with these feelings in mind that he began composing the Mass in C minor and intended the soprano solos for his wife Constanze. One indication of this could be the wonderful soprano aria "Et incarnatus est". The mass was probably performed for the first time on October 26, 1783 in St. Peter's Church in Salzburg.

Mozart composed the Kyrie, the Gloria, individual parts of the Credo and the Sanctus. The mass is unfinished. There are various speculations as to why. One reason could be the early death of their first child. Raimund Leopold was born on June 17 and died on August 19, 1783, perhaps due to the reforms of Joseph II at the time, which meant that large-scale church music was no longer performed. The unfinished work only exists in "fragments". And yet the music is perfect due to its genius and touches the audience deeply.

Conductor Sebastian Goll has been working on the work for many years and has supplemented the Great Mass in C minor with original music by Mozart. For the incomplete Credo, he added parts from Mozart's Dominicus Mass, K. 66, Orphanage Mass, K. 139 and Trinity Mass, K. 167. For the Sanctus and Hosanna, he drew on the completed version by Frieder Bernius and Uwe Wolf. For the Benedictus he relied on the copy of the score by Father Matthäus Fischer and for the Agnus Dei he chose music from the Orphanage Mass, K. 139 and the Coronation Mass, K. 317.

The aim of the Studienchor Leimental is to present an exceptional concert with an outstanding choral work to a large and music-loving audience from the Basel region every year. On October 25 and 26, 2025, Mozart's incomplete Great Mass in C minor will be performed as a completed mass with original music by Mozart in St. Martin's Church in Basel. The audience can be surprised and enjoy.

Note: This text was translated by machine translation software and not by a human translator. It may contain translation errors.