By Cesar Arevalo | Audio Specialist.
Many times when talking about Mozart it is inevitable to recall his undeniable symphonic work, his sonatas and piano concertos, string quartets, operas, and masses, among many other relevant works. However, his production of sacred music is sometimes unknown to the general public, compositions as majestic as his Requiem Mass, and the incomplete Mass in C minor. On this occasion, a piece has been taken from his compendium of litanies and antiphons to be orchestrated with the help of the organ and the melodica.
Orchestration
The piece has been written originally for 4 voices (SATB) of which the melodic lines of the bass, alto, and soprano have been implemented in a musical reduction disposed to be played on an organ. The tenor range has been interpreted with a melodica, another wind instrument that complements the old sound of the piece. The bass line (included in the organ reduction) has also been sung following the orchestration of some instrumental interpretations of this piece (it is common to hear this piece performed only by a choir).
Recording
The first instrument that has been captured is the organ, for this purpose, the Yamaha Electon EL-7 was used, a tool produced in the early 90s that has the enormous advantage of the use of MIDI protocol, two simple connections (MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT) allow the user to play the instrument hand in hand with MIDI devices, controllers and DAWs. In this case, the organ “toccata” from Logic Pro X has been mixed with the Organ Mystique by Project Sam (implemented with the help of Kontak 5), virtual instruments that with the help of the “Valhalla Vintage verb” achieve a sound with a wide stereo image and a long but pleasant reverb. The melodica has also been sent to this reverb as has the voice group made up of three overlapping recordings of the phrases sung for this work.
Featured Image content from:
https://www2.uned.es/dpto-hdi/museovirtualhistoriamasoneria/15musica_y_masoneria/uso%20masonico%20musica%20mozart.htm
Score:
https://imslp.org/wiki/File:TN-Mozart_Werke_Breitkopf_Serie_03_KV86.jpg