The Kleine Freimaurer-Kantate, K. 623 (Little Masonic Cantata), also called "Laut verkünde unsre Freude" ("Proclaim our Joy Aloud") after its opening words, is a cantata by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Finished in 1791 shortly before his death, the work is the final one completed by Mozart.
A Mozart biographer claimed the Cantata may have been well-received in its premiere, making Mozart happy. However, the premiere may have contributed to the illness that led to Mozart's death. Despite not being the most popular of his works, multiple versions and recordings of the Cantata have been published.
The Cantata has 6 movements, and they only contain male voices accompanied by an orchestra. It was inspired by Mozart's Freemasonry, compared to Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, and debated over who wrote the lyrics. The opera section describes optimism, both from its main characters and for the broader time period of Mozart. However, some analysts suggest that the world in the following centuries did not become as bright as Mozart had hoped.
The work is the last that Mozart ever completed; he recorded it as finished in his personal catalogue on 15 November 1791, twenty days before his death. The work was written in Vienna where Mozart had lived since 1781. The cantata reflects Mozart's devoted membership in the Masons; see Mozart and Freemasonry.
Mozart wrote this work for a particular Masonic ceremony: the celebration of a new temple for a Masonic lodge in Vienna called "Zur neugekrönten Hoffnung" ("New-crowned hope").
Peter Branscombe writes of the role of music in Freemasonry at the time:
<blockquote> Music played an important part in the activities of most Masonic lodges in the eighteenth century. ... In Vienna, where many of the leading musicians of the city were Masons, quite elaborated instrumentation was frequently employed. ... Choral songs (often in three parts) were sung for the opening and closing of lodge meetings, for special occasions ambitious compositions were sometimes written, and visiting musicians were given the opportunity to display their skills. </blockquote>
Mozart's work fits into this picture, notably in that the chorus he called for consisted of three parts (these were Tenor I, Tenor II, and Bass).
The work was premiered at the inaugural celebration of the new temple on 17 November 1791, two days after Mozart completed the work. The soloists, choral singers, and orchestra were directed by the composer. The Brünner Zeitung (issue of 19 November 1791) reported that the premiere performance was not just a Masonic event; that tickets were offered to the general public.
The first evaluation of the work in print appeared in the 13 December issue of the Bayreuther Zeitung, in an article that also reported Mozart's death (5 December 1791). Their Vienna correspondent noted in passing that "His last work was the composition of a cantata, which he provided here to the Masons, of which he was a member, on the occasion of the dedication of their new temple, and which is said to be a masterpiece of noble simplicity." In his 1798 Mozart biography, Franz Xaver Niemetschek recorded (based most likely on testimony from Mozart's wife Constanze) that the cantata had been enthusiastically received at its premiere, and that Mozart came home from the event filled with joy â a final moment of happiness very near the end of his life.
The physician-scholar Peter J. Davies (1983) conjectured that the "Laut verkünde" premiere was, in fact, the cause of Mozart's death. There is evidence (for details, see Death of Mozart) that Mozart died of an epidemic disease, and the premiere took place three days before Mozart became ill.
On 25 January 1792, several weeks after Mozart's death, a "Society of Philanthropists," probably Masons, placed an advertisement in the Wiener Zeitung for subscriptions to the published version of the cantata, offering them for the price of two ducats, "in order to assist his widow and orphans." This published version was issued by the publisher Joseph Hraschansky several months later.
A version with new lyrics was performed before Emperor Leopold in the Neugekrönte Hoffnung lodge on 8 September 1792, a performance labeled as a "thank-offering" (the thanks were in vain, since by December 1793 Freemasonry had been banned in Austria). On 13 March 1794, Mozart's colleague Emanuel Schikaneder put on a performance at his Theater auf der Wieden, again with new words.
Today, the work is not among the most widely performed or critically admired of Mozart's works, but multiple recordings have been made.
The home key of the work is C major. It takes about 12 to 15 minutes to perform (rather short for a cantata; hence the work's name). The opening bars are as follows:
The cantata consists of these movements:
As a Masonic work of its time, the cantata employs exclusively male voices: there are three soloists: two tenors and a bass; and a male chorus singing in three parts (Tenor I, Tenor II, Bass). The accompanying orchestra consists of two oboes, two horns, flute, and strings.
In a guide for performance, Jonathan Green describes the choral parts as "homophonic and very easy" and the orchestral parts as "medium easy"; suggesting that Mozart may have intended lay members of the lodge to take part in the premiere. The solo parts are judged by Green as more difficult. The choruses in the beginning and in the end of the piece are the same, containing about 20 bars of choral music.
The authorship of the text Mozart employed is not firmly settled. The Neue Mozart-Ausgabe attributes the text to Emanuel Schikaneder, the author of the libretto of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, which had premiered in Vienna six weeks earlier. However, the Mozart scholar Peter Branscombe has argued that this cannot be so, for the first edition of the cantata states that the author of the text was a member of the "Neugekrönte Hoffnung" lodge, and Schikaneder's name does not appear in a membership list. A modified version of the text was created for the performance before the Emperor in 1792; it was attributed to "G...e". Branscombe suggests that this person may be Karl Ludwig Giesecke, who was an apprentice member of the lodge in 1790 and also a member of Schikaneder's theatrical troupe. Lastly, another plausible candidate is , who was a member of the lodge and had served previously as Mozart's Masonic librettist.
David Hamilton suggested that this piece "shares the clarify, directness, and euphony of The Magic Flute".
John A. Rice noticed a close resemblance between the opening of 'Laut verkünde unsre Freude' and a passage from Mozart's opera Così fan tutte, which had premiered the previous year (1790). The two passages (first violin part) are juxtaposed below:
Così fan tutte:
Laut verkünde unser Freude, opening:
The opera passage occurs early in the work: the main characters Ferrando and Gugliemo have concluded a bet with Don Alfonso about the faithfulness of their girlfriends, and sing joyfully about the anticipated outcome (Trio: 'Una bella serenata'). Per Rice, "they sing to music similar to that which Mozart would later use in another piece expressing masculine joy, 'Laut erkünde unsre Freude' in the Freimaurerkantate K. 623."
Marianne Tettlebaum (2007) suggested that modern listeners may be disinclined to attend to the cantata's message. The work expresses a luminous optimism founded in the beliefs of the Age of Enlightenment â which, at the time of composition, was coming to an end. The optimistic view that Reason would bring a better future to humankind was, Tettlebaum suggests, harshly refuted by the events of subsequent centuries. As inhabitants of the bleaker future Mozart could not imagine, we cannot listen to the work in the same way that Mozart's lodge brothers might have:
<blockquote> Perhaps, most crucially, we may have a difficult time believing in the happiness that Mozart's 'Laut verkünde' promises. While can share, perhaps, with the bourgeois struggle of Figaro, ... we cannot readily identify with the Masonic faith in progress, unity, knowledge, and the ease of achieving a better world. ... 'Laut verkünde' is musical harmony that promises human harmony, but for us the promise rings hollow. </blockquote>
Beyond this, the ideals of Mozart's Masonic community might well be judged as falling short of our own; Tettlebaum writes:
<blockquote> What was enlightened for the Freemasons is no longer enlightened ... for us. We no longer struggle for freedom and autonomy under the rule of an all-powerful monarch. We cannot imagine a group in service of enlightenment that does not include women. </blockquote>