Dunedin Consort - Mozart: Requiem - Voix des Arts
24 March 2014
Voix des ArtsJoseph Newsome
Few cornerstone works in the
Western choral canon are as frequently mishandled as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's
Requiem, and few composers of any degree of consequence are as uniformly but
unjustly maligned as Franz Xaver Süßmayr. The Requiem has fallen victim to more
than two centuries of mystery, misconception, and cinematic flights of fancy,
accumulating a trove of traditions that forms a provocative but musically
malignant mythology. There is an undeniable Romantic appeal to the almost
certainly apocryphal notion of the somewhat delusional, perhaps already
terminally ill, and unaccountably destitute Mozart accepting the commission to
compose what he perceived as his own Requiem. Perhaps it is the envious
pleasure of seeing genius laid low by mediocrity that draws curious minds to
the Requiem, or maybe it is the heartening recognition of the triumph of Art over
adversity. The impetus for the continuing endeavor to elevate the circumstances
of the composition of Mozart's Requiem to heights of Shakespearean tragedy may
also arise from the reluctance to concede that the genesis of something so
beautiful and enduring could have been ordinary, even commercial, but it should
not be overlooked that, to the savvy but struggling Mozart, it was the natural
order of things for the creations of masterpieces to be business transactions.
Whatever the true nature of its inception, the Requiem was a debt that was
never fully paid by the Wunderkind from Salzburg, and where adulation of the
departed Mozart ends indictment of the hand that dared to pollute the Master's
manuscript with complementary scribbling begins: his long acquaintance with his
tutor's compositional style notwithstanding, Süßmayr's principal crime is not
being Mozart. It is a hard thing to forgive, especially when virtually anyone
with a modicum of musical training or intuition can with relative ease
differentiate the 'authentic' pages from the 'imposter' portions of the
Requiem. The conundrum is that composers who fancied themselves far more gifted
than Süßmayr have proved less successful than their unassuming forebear in
fitting Mozart's torso with Requiem limbs of their own creation. Among a gaggle
of Frankenstein's monsters, Süßmayr's musical Prometheus remains the most
effective. If not submersed in the tide of genius itself, Süßmayr's completion
of the Requiem at least reflects genius upon its surface. The truth that is
only reluctantly admitted is that the Requiem is far from Mozart's finest or
most coherent work, but, being inseparable from the dolorous legacy of a great
artist dying too young, it is a work of rage, resignation, and retribution and
a score that has influenced every subsequent generation of composers. Seeking
to strip away the grime of all the well-meaning hands that have molested the
score since Mozart laid down his pen in 1791, this new recording by Dunedin
Consort fascinatingly
focuses on presenting the Requiem as it was heard in complete form at its first
public performance in Vienna's Jahn-Saal in January 1793. It is a vindication
for Süßmayr, whose devotion to his extraordinary teacher is evident in every
bar of his completion of the Requiem. It is also an engrossing opportunity to
take a seat in Vienna's Michaelerkirche in December 1791, when those who loved
him said ‘Lebewohl' to Mozart and ‘Wilkommen' to the first breaths of his
Requiem.
Performances
of the Requiem featuring period instruments and smaller choral ensembles have
become common during the past quarter-century, but this performance by Dunedin
Consort and their Musical Director John Butt cuts a new path through the thicket of
theories and customs that has long obscured the genuine spirit of the Requiem.
Having proved themselves in performances and recordings of music by Bach and
Händel to be virtuosi whose musicality is reliably matched by enthusiasm for
the music they play, the instrumentalists of Dunedin Consort exceed their own
highest standards with the excellence of their playing in this performance of
Mozart's Requiem. Bolstered by the stylish but never obtrusive keyboard playing
of Robert Howarth, the Consort play each movement of the Mass with a tonal
blend carefully constructed to match the mood of the text. The twenty string
players produce sounds of consistent beauty, complemented by especially fine
playing of the basset horns, trumpets, and bassoons. The trombones in ‘Tuba
mirum spargens sonum' are magnificently resonant and secure of intonation,
qualities that have been heard in far too few performances of the Requiem. This
is not a score of enormous difficulty, but the Dunedin Consort players do not
make the mistake made by many ensembles of taking the score's challenges for
granted. Enjoyably accomplished as the Consort's technical execution of
Mozart's music is, it is the unmistakable emotional connection with the score
that is the most exceptional achievement of the Consort's playing. Responding
to Maestro Butt's unaffected direction, the Consort infuse their playing with a
muted sadness that does not prevent sunbeams of humor from emerging from the
orchestral textures. The broad intensity of the ‘Dies irae, dies illa,' ‘Rex
tremendae majestatis,' and ‘Confutatis maledictis' is stirring, all the more so
for the ways in which it contrasts with the majesty of the ‘Tuba mirum spargens
sonum' and the serenity of the ‘Recordare, Jesu pie.' The radiant solemnity of
the ‘Lacrimosa dies illa' is shaped with inherent grace by Maestro Butt and
accompanied with sparkling eloquence. Orchestral doubling of voices in fugal
passages is managed with ideal balance, and both Maestro Butt's leadership and
the Consort's playing are scaled to ensure that Süßmayr's passages are given the
same diligent elegance as Mozart's. Even in the most expansively-orchestrated
passages, Maestro Butt and Dunedin Consort approach the score with the
refinement of chamber players, and the resulting fusion of grandeur with
intimacy serves the music ideally.
The
Dunedin Consort choristers give a performance of their music that is no less
ideal than the playing of their instrumentalist colleagues. From the first
choral entry in the ‘Requiem aeternam,' the choristers-sixteen in number,
including the four soloists-capture the nuances of every turn of phrase with
insightful but never overwrought poignancy. The contrapuntal passages that owe
much to the models of Bach and Händel, in performances of whose music these
singers excel, are delivered with panache, but it is the spiritual directness
of the choral singing that is its most rewarding trait. There is never a sense
of a group of singers going through the motions of performing an impersonal
musical masterpiece. Rather, the choristers respond to every sentiment in
Mozart's-and Süßmayr's-music with alertness and obviously genuine affection,
lending every passage emotional immediacy that charms and inspires. In a
similar vein to Dunedin Consort's Baroque repertoire, there is ample evidence
of historical precedent for the soloists emerging from the choir, and this
recording succeeds as few others in recent memory have done by offering a
quartet of soloists who are thoroughly involved in the performance rather than
an ensemble of busy singers collecting paychecks and padding their
discographies between operatic engagements. Praising individual moments in the
performances given by soprano Joanne Lunn,
mezzo-sopranoRowan
Hellier, tenor Thomas Hobbs, and
bass-baritone Matthew Brook would be to overlook a thousand more.
The poise and security of Ms. Lunn's singing are splendid, and her upper
register rings out gorgeously without forcing or operatic preening. Ms.
Hellier's fruity timbre melds well with Ms. Lunn's, and she, too, sings with
superb control and composure. Mr. Hobbs sings with the finesse of the young
Schreier and the golden tone of the mature Wunderlich, and he adorns the
performance with a standard-setting account of the tenor part. Mr. Brook has
the fullness in his lower register to bring true power to his descending
phrases in the ‘Tuba mirum spargens sonum,' and throughout the performance his
singing provides an unshakable foundation for the solo quartet. In the Requiem
and the ‘Offertorium de tempore,' Mozart's 1775 setting of the Psalm text
‘Misericordias domini in aeternum cantabo' that uncannily prefigures the
principal theme of the choral finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, the singing
is highly cultivated but also lovingly visceral. Rather than merely singing
notes, these sixteen individuals give a performance that pulses with timeless
humanity.
Hearing
this recording of Mozart's Requiem has the effect of encountering a great work
of art for the first time, not from the perspective of history but with the
fresh insights of new acquaintance. Mozart's widow having engaged his pupil
Süßmayr in the completion of the Requiem was undoubtedly an effort at
finalizing a commercial enterprise, the proceeds from which were likely sorely
needed by the composer's surviving family, but the unflattering portrait that
history has painted of Constanze Mozart does not obstruct appreciation of her
recognition of her husband's genius and the lasting importance of his work. It
is a lofty goal to which this recording aspires, but the integrity of the
artists involved ensures that the performance is never bogged down by
scholarship. Musically, this is an incredibly satisfying performance of
Mozart's Requiem. On a deeper level, however, this is a performance that, by
returning the work to the contexts of its infancy, reminds the listener why the
music of Mozart will be played as long as there are human ears to be enraptured
by it.

Related Links
Dunedin Consort
Mozart: Requiem (Reconstruction of first performance)
Mozart: Requiem (Reconstruction of first performance) LP