A review of the concert given on Saturday Nov. 10th 2012
At the first performance of Puccini’s Turandot at La Scala Milan, there came a point in the middle of Act 3 when the music stopped and the conductor, Toscanini, turned to the audience and said, “Here the opera ends, because at this point the maestro died”. With performances of Mozart’s Requiem, nothing so well organized is possible. In spite of the impression given in the film Amadeus, Mozart was not dictating the Requiem to Salieri on his death bed, though he may have talked about it with various composers who had come to him for lessons. In fact Mozart’s wife, Constanze, may have had a financial interest in obscuring how much Mozart had actually completed because of the curiously secret commission of the work by Count von Walsegg, who wanted to pass the work of as his own, written in memory of his wife.
Listening to the work as completed by Süssmayr – even when performed with the commitment and enthusiasm of the choir and orchestra in our church on November 10th – the Sanctus and Benedictus which probably contain no Mozartian material, sound less inspired than the rest; but the rest even with Sussmayr’s often weak orchestration is indeed inspiring and the ‘Come and sing’ choir sang as if inspired both by James Sherlock’s conducting and by the presence of the orchestra largely made up of Hilary Nex’s family and friends, the concert being sponsored in Hilary’s memory (she was Handley and Anne Stevens’ daughter and died in 2010). The distribution of the choir worked well, with the sopranos and altos on either side of the orchestra, and the tenors and basses above them in the gallery, though the men (as always less numerous than the women and children) might have been heard to better effect if they had looked out towards the audience rather than down towards the orchestra. The soloists might also have made more impact if they had been positioned in front of the orchestra, though they all sang both dramatically and lyrically as required and with beauty and clarity of tone. (Morag Boyle was replaced on the day by Annabel Baber as the contralto soloist.) It would have been nice to have had a trombone for the Tuba mirum – perhaps next time, even though David Moore’s sensitive organ playing blended well with the orchestra, which itself produced some beautiful playing especially as the choir sang Cor contritum quasi cinis. The only unintended accompaniment came with the sound of fireworks somewhat inappropriately being let off during the Agnus dei.
In the past these performances of the Mozart Requiem have not in my memory begun with anything like as substantial a piece as Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 23 in A K488, conducted from the keyboard by James Sherlock. The concerto was written while Mozart was working on the ‘Marriage of Figaro’ both being finished in the early months of 1786. The concerto has something of the warmth and high spirits of the opera especially in the ebullient final movement, though it is preceded by a more somber and tragic slow movement in the minor tonality of F sharp minor unique to his piano concerti. Though for me the first movement could have been a little quicker, the piano playing throughout was beautifully shaped and coloured. The orchestra had a few difficulties in matching the soloist’s accuracy but the final movement with its scurrying bassoons was brought off with great élan. We look forward to hearing what next year’s concert will have to offer under James Sherlock’s direction.