Litanies, Vespers

Abstract

Mozart's early experience of sacred music was dominated by the Salzburg court, the archbishops of Salzburg being both spiritual and temporal rulers of the city. As such he composed sacred music from an early age, having as his models his own father Leopold, the court organist and Kapellmeister Johann Ernst Eberlin and Michael Haydn, the brother of the famous Joseph, who was employed at the court from the early 1760s. Two settings of the votive antiphon Regina coeli (Queen of heaven) date from this period, the first, K108 (K74d) was composed in May 1771 and is a festive work scored for solo soprano, four-part chorus and an orchestra including horns, trumpets and timpani. The composition of the present work followed exactly a year later, leading to the conclusion that both were written for some specific seasonal celebration, the Regina coeli being the third of the four Marian antiphons that could be sung between Holy Saturday and the Saturday in Whitsuntide. K127 is scored for the same forces as its predecessor minus the trumpets and timpani. One of the two, probably K127, was apparently composed for Michael Haydn's wife, the soprano Maria Magdalena Lipp; some years later Leopold Mozart referred in a letter to the Regina coeli Mozart had composed for "die Haydnin". There are four sections, an opening allegro followed by an andante principally for the solo soprano. The succeeding movement is a tender, mellifluous adagio that gives way to the final joyous Alleluia. The style is very much like that of a concerto, with ritornellos punctuated by the soloist.