Mozart: Requiem (2006)

The Mozart Requiem on this disc was recorded in London in 1967 and the Masonic Funeral Music that opens the program three years before that. What the buyer gets, therefore, is certainly big-orchestra Mozart, music that might have made the composer back up and blink a little bit. That said, this reading by conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra is one of the best of its type -- intelligently shaped, beautifully executed, and never overdramatized. The slow choral movements, ... Read More

The Mozart Requiem on this disc was recorded in London in 1967 and the Masonic Funeral Music that opens the program three years before that. What the buyer gets, therefore, is certainly big-orchestra Mozart, music that might have made the composer back up and blink a little bit. That said, this reading by conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra is one of the best of its type -- intelligently shaped, beautifully executed, and never overdramatized. The slow choral movements, particularly the Kyrie, are taken deliberately and sculpted into distinct layers of sound; the Kyrie resembles a giant's tread, perhaps, but that of a serious giant. The rich sound of soprano Edith Mathis emerges immediately in the Introit as well matched to the overall conception, but the best is yet to come: this disc is worth the purchase price for the vocal quartet movements alone. Sample if possible the "Tuba mirum," track 5. The performance is on the operatic side, and the opening... Read Less