Mozart
Requiem
Chadi Lazreq (treble), Ying Fang (soprano), Beth Taylor (mezzo-soprano), et al; Pygmalion/Raphaël Pichon
Harmonia Mundi HMM902729 73 mins
Mozart’s unfinished Requiem always provokes some controversy, depending on your view of the various completions, but Raphaël Pichon and his superb choir and period instrument orchestra, Pygmalion, move the discussion on by sensitively adding their own interpretive layer in this beautiful and truly moving programme.
Pichon intersperses earlier sacred works of Mozart thoughtfully and with consummate judgement (and judicious pauses) throughout the Requiem (in the Sussmayr completion). Far from detracting, it adds volume and pathos. An anonymous plainchant, In Paradisum, sung by the clear-voiced treble Chadi Lazreq, bookends the Requiem, its first rendition suddenly – and brilliantly – cut short by the rousing solo quartet Ach, zu kurz ist unsers Lebenslauf.
Pichon’s thinking is that life must be worked through before the final commendation. And it works – this is commentary on, and enhancement of Mozart’s Requiem and all entailed by it in Mozart’s vision. It is ‘completion’ in a very different way.
And it is all so gorgeously sung and played, from the fine chorus to the excellent musicians and soloists – soprano Ying Fang, alto Beth Taylor, tenor Laurence Kilsby and bass Alex Rosen. The Requiem is thrillingly served in all its theatrical grandeur, from the opening Introitus to a thrillingly punchy Dies Irae. The interpolations include Lazreq singing the Solfeggio and the ethereal Quis te comprehendat. The hymnal O Gottes Lamm, finely orchestrated, is moving, beautifully sung by Taylor, the choir echoing her words as if a chorus of souls.
As the thundering tones of the Communio come to an end, there is a pause, then the haunting voice of Chadi Lazreq, as if singing in an empty church, soon joined by an angelic canon of sopranos from Pygamalion, commending all souls to eternal rest. Sarah Urwin Jones
