Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
Mozart’s Death in Words and Music
Jeanine de Bique (soprano); Catriona Morison (mezzo-soprano); Ben Bliss (tenor); Tareq Nazmi (bass)
F. Murray Abraham (narrator)
Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh
Westminster Choir (Gregorian Chants)
Pittsburgh Symphony/Manfred Honeck
rec. live, 17-19 March 2023, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, USA
Latin texts and English translations included
Reference Recordings FR-761 SACD [59]

The combination of Manfred Honeck, the Pittsburgh Symphony and Reference Recordings has given us many superb recordings over the years, from Beethoven to Jonathan Leshnoff, many often being highly acclaimed, as evidenced with Honeck’s most recent recording of Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony being nominated as the MusicWeb International Recording of the Year for 2024. Most of the repertoire to date has been of big sonic spectaculars that revelled in the glorious sonics of Reference Recordings Soundmirror recording team, so I was curious to explore this new album by the same team with the more modest forces required for Mozart, not least since their Beethoven has been decidedly more Romantic in heft and hue than perhaps is more fashionable these days.

In the first instance, it must be noted that although the major work on this release is the Requiem Mass by Mozart, all is not quite as it seems, as Manfred Honeck himself explains in the accompanying booklet:

On this recording you will hear a performance practice of the Mozart Requiem that I have developed and staged in concert halls and churches worldwide for decades. The basic intuition behind repeatedly interspersing the music of the Requiem with Gregorian chant, texts, and other Mozart compositions on death and hope is twofold. On the one hand, it is an attempt to visualize Mozart’s funeral itself and to view the death of the immortal genius in the context of a funeral liturgy, one that consists of more parts than the composition alone. On the other hand, it is a way to allow contemplation of human death, and the hope beyond it, by embedding the Mozart Requiem within a kind of introduction and epilogue…..

In other words, it is almost as if what is being offered on this album is as much a Requiem Mass for Mozart, as a Requiem Mass by Mozart, so at the end of this article I have listed the ‘order of service’ as it were, to give you an idea of what is being presented here.

It opens, and closes, with a bell being struck as if sounding the beginning and end of mass, before the performance begins with Gregorian Chant, followed by readings of Mozart’s letters, poetry by the holocaust survivor Nelly Sachs, passages from the Book of Revelations, as well as other music by Mozart including the Masonic Funeral Music, the Ave Verum Corpus and the Laudate Dominum from the Vesperae solennes de confessore, K.339, which are interspersed between sections of the Requiem. Of course, this is not the first time Mozart’s sacred music has been presented in such a way; in 1986, Deutsche Grammophon released a performance of Herbert von Karajan conducting the Coronation Mass at the Vatican during High Mass led by the then Pope, John Paul II, where, of course, once you had heard the whole thing for the first (and probably only) time, you could then programme your listening device to play only the tracks containing Mozart’s music. I suppose it is quite possible to do the same with this Reference Recordings release too, although it must be noted that Honeck includes only the music in the mass present in Mozart’s manuscript fragments, so all the sections from the Sanctus onwards, including the Benedictus, Agnus Dei, Lux Aeterna and Cum Sanctis Tuis are omitted. Instead, as the Hostias closes the Offertorium, Honeck re-plays a fragment of the Lacrimosa again, the eight bars being the final music Mozart ever composed; as the conductor acknowledges, it does end rather abruptly at its climax in the eighth bar, so it is followed by the Ave Verum Corpus and then the solitary bell again, which sounds the end of the ‘mass’ or performance.

This is therefore a recording of the Mozart Requiem unlike any other and I would imagine it would enthral as many as it would frustrate others. In the first instance, the Gregorian Chants are not sung by the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh as with the main works, but rather the tenors and basses of the Westminster Choir which, like the solitary bell, sound as if they have been recorded in a different venue and acoustic to the remainder of the disc, with more reverberation and with a noticeable background hiss – which is strange, since the notes indicate that the recording was taken from live performances at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh. (A reader has since contacted MWI to explain, “In the live performance, the chant is performed from an elevated point towards the rear of the house. The bell is also way off stage.”) The readings are spoken by F. Murray Abraham, a nice touch when one remembers his superb portrayal of Antonio Salieri in the film Amadeus and I’m sure this added to the sense of theatre in the live performances. However, on disc, his light-tenor speaking voice seems out of place when surrounded by the heavyweight masterpieces composed by Mozart and readings from the Book of Revelations; in truth, what is really needed is a voice that has the command and gravitas of a Morgan Freeman, or the late James Earl Jones. It is ironic, then, how Mr Abraham, quite rightly, won an Oscar for his performance in the film, for he indeed was Antonio Salieri and yet, once again, in the company of Mozart here, he is made to sound distinctly lightweight. 

So far, then, slightly disappointing, which is a pity since the actual performance of the Requiem – or the parts that are presented here – is a rather fine one. I had wondered how Honeck may have approached the music, not least when bearing in mind his early career as a viola player in the Vienna Philharmonic, and given how his Beethoven is more heavy-duty than many of his contemporaries, such as Paavo Järvi or Riccardo Chailly, to name two. His Mozart, though, is nothing like the hyper-Romantic approach of Leonard Bernstein and is instead presented with crystalline textures, sprightly rhythms and a keen sense of the drama being played; I liked it. The playing of the Pittsburgh Symphony is flawless, neat and tidy, while the singing from the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh is hugely committed and if the soloists of Jeanine de Bique, Catriona Morison, Ben Bliss, Tareq Nazmi do not efface memories of singers past, I have no complaints about them, either. Honeck’s tempos are fluid, if not as breathless as with Teodor Currentzis (review) or Masaaki Suzuki (review) in their recordings, and if he is occasionally wont to exaggerate dynamics – for example, in the Dies Irae, Honeck notes that neither Mozart nor Süßmayer indicated any dynamics other than forte, so he had inserted his own, most notably at the subito whispered “Quantus tremor est futurus” [how great will be the trembling], which the conductor likens to a ‘whimpering plea’ – then it is always with an eye of the context of the drama being played out, rather than being deliberately provocative, as Nicolaus Harnoncourt was prone to do in his two accounts. If I regret that absence of the  familiar completion by Franz Süßmayr, then I will concede that Honeck’s ‘solution’ of performing the Ave Verum Corpus straight after the Lacrimosa fragment works rather well; in contrast with the tempos for the main work and the Laudate Dominum, he is slow, rapt and reverential in the motet, instructing his chorus to observe Mozart’s instruction of sotte voce to a degree that is dreamily beautiful, even if you will struggle to make out any of the words.

As always with Reference Recordings, the presentation of this album is first class. In spite of my caveats regarding the changing acoustics for the Gregorian Chants and bell, the sound is once more superb, with expert balances between soloists, chorus and orchestra. The accompanying notes, contains a long essay by the conductor, giving a blow-by-blow account of his interpretation of the music as well as explanations as to the inclusion of the other pieces, along with biographies of all the performers, full texts and translations, including lists of all the members of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Westminster Choir and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh; you really couldn’t ask for more. It is an album scheduled to be issued as a download on every platform in August 2025, with a hybrid SACD later on in 2025.

In summary, this is a thoughtful recording of Mozart’s Requiem along with some of the composer’s other compositions concerning death, in a near-flawless presentation, the likes of which is rare nowadays; however, it will not be a release for everyone and so for those who seek a recording of just the main work, then I would instead refer you to Ralph Moore’s fine survey for further reading. Rather, to close this review of a disc containing just a small handful of Mozart’s numerous masterpieces, perhaps it is appropriate to quote F. Murray Abraham himself through his most famous role as Antonio Salieri in the film Amadeus, who summed up the scores on this release and other compositions by Mozart in a way with which I feel even Manfred Honeck would agree: “This was a music I had never heard. Filled with such longing – such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.”

Lee Denham

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Contents
Bell Strikes
Gregorian Chant
Requiem in aeternam
Reading
Letter from Mozart to his father in Salzburg (Vienna, April 4, 1787)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Maurerische Trauermusik in C minor, K. 477
Maurerische Trauermusik
Gregorian Chant
Domine exaudi orationem meam
Mozart: Vesperae solennes de confessore, K.339
No. 5 Laudate Dominum (“O Praise the Lord”)
Gregorian Chant
In quacumque die
Reading
“Who Knows Where the Stars Stand” by Nelly Sachs
“When in the Late Spring” by Nelly Sachs
Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K. 626
I. Introitus: Requiem (Chorus and Soprano)
II. Kyrie (Chorus)
Reading
Book of Revelations, 6:8–17
Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K. 626
IIIa. Sequentia. Dies Irae (Chorus)
IIIb. Sequentia. Tuba Mirum (Soloists)
IIIc. Sequentia. Rex tremendae (Chorus)
IIId. Sequentia. Recordare (Soloists)
IIIe. Sequentia. Confutatis (Chorus)
IIIf. Sequentia. Lacrimosa (Chorus).
Gregorian Chant
Christus factus est
Reading
Book of Revelations, 21:1–7
Mozart: Requiem in D minor, K. 626
IVa. Offertorium. Domine Jesu (Chorus and Soloists)
IVb. Offertorium. Hostias (Chorus)
Lacrimosa (fragment)  (Chorus)
Mozart: Ave verum corpus, K. 618 in D Major
Ave verum corpus, K. 618
Bell Strikes