1 CD - 82876 58705 2 - (p) 2004 2 LP - 88985342001 - (c) 2016

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) Requiem d-moll, KV 626 Completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766-1803) - [New, Revised Edition by Franz Beyer] I. Introitus: Requiem (Chor, Sopran) 4' 57" 1 II. Kyrie (Chor) 2' 56" 2 III. Sequenz: 19' 41" - Dies irae (Chor) 1' 50" 3 - Tuba mirum (Sopran, Alt, Tenor, Bass) 3' 52" 4 - Rex tremendae(Chor) 1' 58" 5 - Recordare(Sopran, Alt, Tenor, Bass) 6' 19" 6 - Confutatis (Chor) 2' 35" 7 - Lacrimosa(Chor) 3' 07" 8 IV. Offertoriun: 6' 52" - Domine Jesu (Chor, Sopran, Alt, Tenor, Bass) 3' 50" 9 - Hostias (Chor) 3' 02" 10 V. Sanctus (Chor) 1' 19" 11 VI. Benedictus (Chor, Sopran, Alt, Tenor, Bass) 5' 20" 12 VII. Agnus Dei (chor) 3' 25" 13 VIII. Communio: Lux aeterna (Chor, Sopran) 5' 45" 14   Christine Schäfer, Soprano Bernarda Fink, Alto Kurt Streit, Tenor Gerald Finley, Bass Arnold Schoenberg Chor / Erwin Ortner, Chorus Master Concentus Musicus Wien Nikolaus Harnoncourt   Luogo e data di registrazione Großer Musikvereinssaal, Vienna (Austria) - 27 novembre / 1 dicembre 2003 Registrazione live / studio live Producer / Engineer Friedemann Engelbrecht / Michael Brammann / Josef Schütz (ORF) Prima Edizione CD Deutsche Harmonia Mundi - 82876 58705 2 - (1 cd) - 50' 15" - (p) 2004 - DDD Prima Edizione LP Deutsche Harmonia Mundi - 88985342001 - (2 lp) - 24' 27" + 25' 48" - (c) 2016 - DIG Note Il CD contiene una traccia CD-Rom contenente copia del manoscritto originale del Requiem. Mozart and his Requiem: A musician's reflections and Feelings It is undeniably tempting to speculate what course Mozart’s music would have taken if he hadn’t died such a tragically early death. A 70-year-old Mozart would have been a vigorous contemporary of Beethoven and Schubert, of\Weber and the young Mendelssohn. One can well imagine that these composers might have written different music if they had had Mozart looking over their shoulder, as it were. Not only musical history, but probably world history, too, would have evolved differently: Mozart would probably have been the musical focus ofthe Congress of Vienna, instead of Beethoven... The great works that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart penned in the last months of his life point the way - the Clarinet concerto, Zauberflöte, La clemenza di Tito and the Requiem: the tonal language becomes more succinct, the melodies more ‘catchy’, the harmonies and the overall sound more ‘Romantic’. A significant contribution in this respect is made by the clarinets, whose soft tone, capable as it is of modulation, blends with the sounds of the horns and the strings much better than the customary oboes. In the 19th century, clarinets were actually used in many symphonies in place of the oboes called for in the score, in order to create this 'Romantic' sound. In the Requiem, Mozart specifies bassett horns in F - a newly-developed type of clarinet whose veiled, dark sound is heard in the opening bars, and which Mozart returns to time and again as a source of peace and comfort after the outbursts of the choir, of the trumpets and trombones. (These are just my own impressions I am describing here, I'm not attempting a musicological analysis.) The appearance of the great G minor Symphony expressed clearly what had already been hinted at before - in the chamber music, in the death quartet in Idomeneo: a glance into the dark recesses of the soul that was ‘unheard of' in the music of Mozart's day. This new tonal language was felt to be so shocking that the Swiss composer and publisher Hans Georg Nägeli (1773-1836) wondered whether one should even expose the public to it! This Symphony in the ‘death key' of G minor had a decisive influence on my own career: time after time in my days as an orchestral musician, I was forced to play it in such harmless and sugary interpretations that in the end I couldn’t bear this misunderstanding of Mozart’s music any longer: I had no choice but to leave the orchestra and take up the baton myself! Mozart’s Requiem had an overwvhelming effect from the outset - on concert audiences, of course, but also on generations of composers. Even Beethoven, who was himself nothing if not a radical musical spirit, found it “too wild and terrible”. He was going to write one himself, but more “conciliatory” in manner. Today, we are suprised at such reactions, for we hardly expect to find such devastation and terror even in Mozart’s most shattering works (there is a parallel here to the reception of the G minor Symphony). The best part of a century later, Bruckner still regarded the Requiem as a model and an unattainable masterpiece that he quoted time after time in his symphonies - e.g., the harmonic sequence of four bars with which the autograph score of the Lacrimosa ends on the words "qua resurget ex favilla judicandus homo reus", or the opening motif of the Introitus in the woodwind and in the chorus “Requiem aeternam”. This unbroken effect, indeed popularity, over a period of more than 200 years is something i can’t explain, and it affects me too on an entirely personal level. I had already played the Requiem in the orchestra when I was but a child, and was deeply moved. Why? Many listeners have the same experience; this is haunting music, a work that literally ‘gets under your skin’, no matter what objections the musicologists and Mozart experts may voice about the fragmentary character of the piece or about Süßmayr's inadequate completion ofthe score. Most ofthe additional music undoubtedly has its roots in Mozart - Süßmayr must have had sketches or other information at his disposal, otherwise real Mozartian thematic and harmonic crossreferences would not have been possible, these would have been beyond Süßmayr's abilities. (To give a couple of examples of what I mean: the bass in the Agnus Dei is an enlargement of the Requiem theme; the interval steps of the Hosanna correspond to those of the Recordare; and the melody of the Sanctus corresponds to that ofthe Dies Irae.) Süßmayer's mistakes have been corrected as far as possible in Franz Beyer’s edition, but Beyer deliberately refrained from adding any newly-composed music. Thus we have to go without the Amen fugue (at the end of the Lacrimosa) as the conclusion of the Dies Irae sequence. There’s one more thing I’d like to point out. In nearly all other cases, Mozart’s music is conspicuously independent of his biography. The great composer wrote sad or light-hearted works irrespective of his own state of mind; this much is convincingly conveyed in Hildesheimer’s book on Mozart. But the Requiem seems to be the exception that proves the rule: in the truly terrifying Dies Irae sequence, for example, the composer’s fortunes are reflected so movingly in the music that the personal relevance cannot be missed (e.g. Recordare: "statuens in parte dextra"; Confutatis: “gere curam mei finis"). Anyone who listens to this marvellous work cannot help but feel this identification, and that may well be the ultimate reason for the incredible effect that the Mozart Requiem has. Nikolaus Harnoncourt, 2004 Translation: Clive Williams Nikolaus Harnoncourt (1929-2016)