Critic’s Notebook: A Requiem for Mozart

Also published in Die Presse: Mozarts Requiem wird unterminiert

W.A.Mozart Requiem N.Harnoncourt, Concentus Musicus, A.Schoenberg Choir (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

W.A.Mozart Masonic Funeral Music, Symphony in G-mionr KV.550 Stuttgart CO, Dennis-Russell Davies (ECM, 1996) US | UK | DE

G.P.Telemann Ouvertures à 4 ou 6 (1736) L'Orfeo Barockorchester, Carin van Heerden (DHM, 2004) US | UK | DE

The L’Orfeo Barockorchester celebrates Mozart’s Death

Competent music-making and killing dolphins in the name of humanity

L’Orfeo Barockorchester usually rummages delightfully through the more remote corners of the repertoire – as their recordings of symphonies by Josef Mysliveček, Anton Fils, Leopold Mozart, or – hot off the press – Franz Xaver Richter make plain. Not to mention their superb Telemann: whether overtures or (all!) the violin concertos. At a Jeunesse-organized concert in the Musikverein – fittingly on the 234th anniversary of Mozart’s death – the program was, however, fixed squarely on the birthday boy of the afterlife. Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music in C minor, as the warm-up overture, had a few wobbly entries but pleased with its even, nobly flowing tempo. The attacca transition into the G minor Symphony K. 550 was presumably meant to be just as fluid, but turned out a touch abrupt. No harm done to the piece, though, last heard in the same spot only a week earlier with the VSO. With robust entries, quicksilver vitality, and no kid gloves in sight, it sounded plenty concining, even with the much smaller forces assembled here. Michi Gaigg might have pushed the inner movements forward rather hard – nearly breathlessly – but the finale regained a gratifying swing.

The main course of this Mozart commemoration was to be the Requiem, in its regular Süssmayr completion. Several things conspired against it. Chief among them: the request to switch on small LED candles – handed out before the concert – during the Lacrimosa, for purposes of introspection and “collective contemplation”. Because, apparently, the music alone does not suffice to do the job. Predictably, it all went to sh...pieces. First, half the lights in the hall were switched off. No dimming, no subtlty. Then: rustling, rummaging, rumbling. Finally, the little LED bitties had been pulled out of bags and pockets – but now what? The hall was still too bright, no one quite knew what to do, and everyone stood around sheepishly, holding their gadget. And the Lacrimosa is not, in fact, a piece that lends itself to waving little lights like lighters during the ballad at a rock concert. What remained was disturbance – and plastic waste for the sake of humanity. A fool’s errand of the highest order.

Not that it disrupted anything particularly exquisit (the music itself excepted, of course), since this Requiem sounded undernorished and pale with the smallish ensemble – and not solely because of our modern listening habits or the historically informed performance. There have been plenty HIP takes of the Requiem that have knocked our socks off. Here, too, the music felt driven, as if fatigue was to be avoided at all costs – thereby causing it. The quartet of soloists was at least respectable: Ekaterina Krasko, once warmed up, with a bright soprano; Tamara Obermay’s alto strikingly even and balanced (a stand-out performance); Virgil Hartinger’s tenor alternately lyrical and croaky; and Daniel Okulitch pleasingly dark and secure in the depths, for a bass-baritone. The Salzburg chorus, fielding four voices per part, sang with clear tone and had no trouble making itself heard in the Golden Hall. Most of the dynamic shaping came from them, to the extent there was any. Intelligibility, however, was not their strong suit, depsite the reduced numbers. At least the natural trumpets, in fine form indeed, cut through the texture as if determined to grab you by the scruff of the neck. But for all the everal fine individual moments, the overall impression was one of dull gray, and essentially had evaporated by the time one stepped out of the Musikverein.


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