Mozart_ Requiem

…Süssmayr, of course, was not the only, or even the first, person engaged by Constanza Mozart to work on her late husband’s unfinished masterpiece. Her first choice was Josef Eybler, another of Mozart’s students, and the one that Mozart had considered more capable. Eybler worked on the orchestration of the portions of the score for which Mozart had written vocal parts and a continuo bass line, but balked at providing original music for the missing sections of the Requiem. Süssmayr then took over, enjoying the advantage of having discussed Mozart’s intentions for the completion of the score with him. It’s entirely possible that the young assistant had a second advantage, namely that he was not sufficiently aware of the implications of the monumental task that Eybler had abandoned and that he was undertaking. There’s an unresolved dispute over his decision to bring the score to a close by repeating the music of the first fugue.

Two great recordings of two of the greatest choral works. Karajan and Levin swoops the standards of tempi, phrasing and intens music making. Karajan's finest recording of the Requiem. Levin sets the bar a milestone higher. Remastering of the Requiem is confidentional good. Sound quality of K427 is superb.

December 1791, the final Requiem. Tired by his many voyages around Europe ever since he had been rejected in Vienna, Mozart could not find the strength to honour his promise to compose a Requiem in record time for the person who had commissioned it… He was in fact to be struck down by illness during its composition and it was his pupil Süssmayr who finished the work according to his instructions. This version remains the most convincing, for the presence and grandeur of Mozart are present everywhere - in the baroque imagination and the classical style, in the universal unrest and the sheer terror of a man alone in the face of Death.

This 2-CD set contains recordings of music conducted by Gary Bertini when he was chief conductor of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Cologne of the West-German Radio Corporation Cologne (WDR). In the Mass in C Minor, the first soprano part is full of virtuoso technical difficulties – especially in the famous “Et incarnatus est” passage – and here legendary soprano Arleen Augér interprets it in an exemplary manner.

For all the lovely recordings of the Mozart Requiem, KV 626 - and there are many fine ones that run the gamut of 'authoritative/authentic' performances to richly robust and romantic versions that ring the halls with operatic grandeur - this 1995 recording with William Christie conducting Les Arts Florissantes is one that is so richly rewarding to return to for its delicate yet soulful sincerity. The instruments are in keeping with the instruments of Mozart's time, and the choral technique is more straight toned than other more modern choruses. The soloists - Anna Maria Panzarella, soprano, Nathalie Stutzmann, alto, Christoph Pregardien, tenor, and Nathan Berg, bass - are all excellent, both as individuals and in quartet and combinations.

Beethoven called Mozart's Requiem "wild and terrible," and that's what we get in Harnoncourt's new recording. Ominous dread hangs from every note of the dark opening measures, the Rex tremendae and Confutatis are driven with terrifying strength, and the supplications of the Lacrimosa, with their weeping stabbings of the orchestra, are freighted with emotional power. The Tuba mirum duet of bass soloist and trombone has a beauty almost never achieved in other readings. Nor does Harnoncourt overstep the stylistic boundaries of this classical-era work; rather, the intensity is heightened for being in the idiom of its time. Call it a Romantic reading of a Classical piece that looks forward to a more unbuttoned era.

On July 16, 1999, the 10th anniversary of the death of Herbert von Karajan, the Berlin Philharmonic paid tribute to their late maestro, playing within the confines of the imposing Salzburg Cathedral in von Karajans hometown of Salzburg. Among other works, the orchestra performed Mozart's Requiem in D minor, KV 626, featuring soprano Karita Mattila, contralto Sara Mingardo, tenor Michael Schade and bass baritone Bryn Terfel as soloists. Soprano Rachel Harnisch appeared as soloist on the two complementing arias Betrachte dies mein Herz und frage mich and Laudate Dominum.

The chamber orchestra MusicaAeterna was founded by Teodor Currentzis in 2004, while he was music director of the Novosibirsk State Opera and the orchestra was involved in Opera and Ballet performances at the theatre. On this CD the orchestra are described as the ‘orchestre de chambre de l’Opéra de Novosibirsk’, but in January 2011 Currentzis became Artistic Director of the Perm State Opera and Ballet and MusicaAeterna are now based in Perm.

Founded in 1921, The Netherlands Bach Society is the oldest Early Music ensemble in the Netherlands, and possibly in the whole world. Yet along with the musicians, its artistic director Jos van Veldhoven is still continually in search of contemporary ways of presenting this music, whether it be the traditional performances of the St. Matthew Passion in Naarden, other works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) or music by his predecessors, successors, contemporaries and fellow spirits.