Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Ave verum Corpus, K.618 (1791)
Exsultate, Jubilate, K.165 (1773)
Requiem, K626 (1791-2, compl. Süssmayr)
Marie Lys (soprano), Beth Taylor (alto), Cyrille Dubois (tenor), Hanno Müller-Brachman (bass)
Ensemble Vocale de Lausanne
Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne/John Nelson
rec. live, 9 February 2023, Théâtre de Beaulieu, Lausanne, Switzerland
ICA Classics ICAC5175 [62]

I have long sought the best recording of Mozart’s Requiem, and have around a dozen on my shelves, but have settled on a handful I really enjoy, starting with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in 1968 – hardly HIP, but wonderfully sung. To demonstrate my tolerance of a diversity of performance styles, I would mention that last February I favourably reviewed a refreshingly original take on the music by Felix Koch on the Rondeau label. This latest issue from ICA will not, I assure you, be joining them.

Before the main offering, we have here two bon-bons: first, Mozart’s Ave verum Corpus,elegantly sung by the Lausanne choir with good intonation, even if I find Nelson’s tempo a tad rushed and I have heard more affectionate performances; then the motet Exsultate, Jubilate, a display item for soprano, sung by Marie Lys, who has a light, bright, precise, slightly twittery voice; her rendering hardly effaces memories of recordings by such as Kiri Te Kanawa, Kathleen Battle and Elly Ameling. Nelson’s accompaniment is again brisk and there is an element of the “squeeze-box” effect in the orchestral sound, which I do not especially relish.

Lys is one of the four soloists for the Requiem. We thus come to what is for me the deal-breaker – and I mean “breaker” – in this recording, the tenor soloist, Cyrille Dubois. He, bless him, is enjoying a successful career and need not care what I think but his technique represents everything I find wrong with modern singing, especially in the current French school: his voice is small, white, constricted and throaty, and he is afflicted by a persistent tremolo; he often sounds like an under-powered mezzo-soprano. The contrast between his contribution to the Tuba mirum and the size and heft of true mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor’s voice when she enters after him is comical. Taylor is billed as an alto, which she is not; she is the singer whom I favoured in the finals of the most recent Cardiff Singer of the World competition but she did not win – undeservedly, in my estimation. Hanno Müller-Brachman’s groaning bass is laboured, unlovely of timbre and occasionally wobbly. This is not a quartet to rival those of the past.

In addition, I find the small-scale choir and chamber-sized orchestra paltry and Nelson’s manner of conducting peremptory and unfeeling. The choir is uncomfortably balanced against the orchestra, such that they often sound weak, too few and dwarfed by the brass in the Kyrie Eleison. In addition, consonants are under-projected, the vital hard cs and ts in “cuncta stricte”, for example, are inaudible. Nelson generates a bit of heat in the Confutatis but again, the muddy sound and indistinct enunciation are hindrances. The famous Lacrimosa is workaday. The Benedictus features some lovely singing from Taylor but is hampered by Nelson’s perky, rather plodding rhythm, and the whining and strained contributions respectively from the tenor and bass.

I cannot imagine that distinguished conductor John Nelson would consider this performance to be among his finest hours. Given the plethora of superior versions available, nor can I see why anyone would purchase this. I shall not be revisiting it.

Ralph Moore

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