Search - W.a. Mozart :: Mozart-Requiem

Rest Assured

Mark H. Moulton | San Jose, California | 12/06/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the mid-1990's I heard a version of the Requiem that was lighter than most and included the exquisite "Amen" fugue, a closing "Cum Sanctis" fugue, and numerous other reconstructions based on the research of Harvard musicologist Robert Levin. I found Levin's reconstruction to be utterly persuasive and Mozartian, and quite moving. The "Amen" fugue, in particular, closes the Sequentia in a way that both resolves and honors the ache of the Lacrimosa while allowing the first half of the Requiem to balance and foreshadow the second half.



I was worried that the Klaus Mertens version might not meet my expectations for the Levin reconstruction, or might omit sections, but I need not have worried. While it is not as light and "early-music-like" as the version I remember, it is not at all ponderous, and it is faithful to Levin's intentions as far as I can tell. Aside from musicological considerations, it is impeccably realized. The intonation and purity of the voices (chorus and soloists) is perfect and diaphanous, and light on vibrato, so important for the "voca me" refrains in the Confutatis and the Lacrimosa. The singers execute the difficult fugues with passion and unbelievable precision. The dynamics, coloring, and aural texture of this lovely realization reveal a naked emotionality -- a miraculous exhalation of clarity, terror, grief, and consolation -- that sank me into the pool of Mozart's deathbed masterpiece like a stone."