A Quick Rundown of Mozart Requiem Recordings

There aren't a lot of 'Golden Age' performances on this list for a very simple reason. There are many great Mozartians among the 'old school.' No Mozart education is complete until they've heard Bruno Walter, Beecham, Böhm, Busch, Klemperer, Kleiber, Krips, Ferenc Fricsay, and Carlo Maria Giulini. But as great as orchestral and opera performances used to be, choral performances are quite a bit better today. So many conductors of previous ages are limited by amateur choirs, who are plainly not up to the demands of the contrapuntal movements. No matter how furious the rest of the conception, the work is compromised by testudine tempi in the Kyrie and the Cum Sanctis, the inability to get soft dynamics in the Lacrimosa and the Confutatis, and the bleating operatic vibrato which ruins the blend of Mozart's textures. It is also ruined by many conductors' insistence on making the proto-romanticism of the dying Mozart into something out of Bruckner's or Mahler's Ninth Symphony, and distends Mozart to an expressive weight he can't hold. A little bit of romanticism goes a long way in Mozart, and there are all sorts of arid performances from the period crowd which don't belong as well. No matter how virtuoso John Eliot Gardiner's performance, it's emotionally arid, and even that is preferable to Roger Norrington's chipper jaunt. Then there are the tasteful Mozart Requiems like Marriner and Abbado and Bruggen that are so determined not to put a foot wrong that the human expression goes missing, or the vulgar Mozart Requiems like Solti and Currentzis which are so hell-bound on being dramatic that they cut out all beauty (and let's not even get started on Nikolai Golovanov...). Mozart is so hard to play, he does not take well to playing outside his rules, and while one can successfully personalize his music, you have to preserve the sense of form and balance just about immaculately. Everything has to come through, the melodies have to soar simultaneously to that the dance rhythms have to bounce, everything in the execution has to be precise, but not so precise that the precision draws attention to itself. Every sound has to be beautiful, but not so so beautiful that beauty precludes drama. So here are some recordings which reach the impossible. 



Transcendent:

Colin Davis/London Symphony: Fabulously dramatic playing, and truly magnificent choral singing. As close to ideal as the old conception can ever get. Davis made so many recordings of this that one has the feeling that the work was closer to him than it was to any other major maestro, but as great as the others are, next to a performance this stunning, they're all a bit superfluous. 

(note: in an earlier draft I confused the Alto release and the LSO live and a youtube recording that says 'London Symphony' when upon closer inspection, it is clearly the Bavarian Radio Symphony lead by a middle-aged Sir Colin. I stuck my foot in my mouth as I so often do and said that this was Davis's first LSO recording and better than his LSO Live recording, which is, of course, the same recording, in slightly sharper sound on the Alto label that better brings out its great qualities. Please do not doubt my integrity or good intentions, only doubt my competence.)

Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Concentus Musicus Wien (second recording): The other 'ultimate' Mozart Requiem conductor draws out the most detailed, magnificent, and terrifying orchestral playing, along with fantastically blended soloists and a very fine chorus. Listen to the strings evoke hell's flames in the Confutatis, the stab of the first trombone entrance in the Introit and the trombone's imposition in the Tuba Mirum, the surprise of the sudden pianissimo in the Dies Irae and the subsequent explosion, the French pomp of the rhythms on 'Rex Tremendae Majestantis', the rare cantabile of period strings in the Recordare, the huge dynamic contrasts in the Agnus Dei.   Of course, this being Harnoncourt, it's quite idiosyncratic. I wonder if the only true misstep among all this is the jig-like tempo in the Hostias, which is not as huge problem as it might seem since it's over so quickly... But even elsewhere, so much of this seems rewritten  it's so thoroughly Harnoncourt-ized that I'm not even sure the differences are in the completion Harnoncourt uses. But such is the nature of performance, transcendence aims past perfection and goes straight to infinity. Mozart does not usually take well to personalization, but that's because concepts Mozart had no idea about are imposed upon him. This is Mozart within his zeitgeist, unspoiled yet by the 19th century, and event he divergences from Mozart have Mozart's era coded on its DNA, and therefore the personalization sounds so much less vulgar than when done by Nikolai Golovanov or Helmut Koch. In seven words: the bony hand of death is everywhere.

Excellence:  

Masaki Suzuki/Bach Collegium Japan: If the whole thing were a little slower, it would practically be perfect. Suzuki is not a huge original personality like Harnoncourt or Jacobs, but his seemingly infallible musical judgement is without precedent in the HIP world. Even the 4-minute Recordare, a movement that usually take 6 (!), works on its own terms - a dance, with such wonderful blended singing and playing. 

Mariss Jansons/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Netherlands Radio Choir: What a stunning surprise from a conductor who was never known for Mozart! Huge dynamic range, fantastic playing and singing, a relatively 'big' reading of course, but not nearly so big as to be unwieldy - Jansons knows exactly how to keep it all within the bounds of classical form. The Concertgebouworkest sounds slightly reduced, and the choir sounds like it's roughly three-dozen voices.  Jansons ignites a Dies Irae for all time, and no one makes the heavenly female voices of the Confutatis sound so eerie, and only Thielemann also creates such a powerful dichotomy between awe and mystery between the loud and quiet passages of the Lacrimosa. 

Nikolaus Harnoncourt/Concentus Musicus Wien (first recording): Uses the Wiener State Opera Chorus, a huge, dramatic sound that, unlike with many Kappelmaestri on previous recordings, Harnoncourt compels to sing with enormous commitment, focus, and discipline.  

Colin Davis/Bavarian Radio Symphony: Extremely dramatic and grand. Not quite the passionate forcefulness of London, but that's unrepeatable. 

Great:

George Szell/Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus: A live concert in imperfect sound, but Mozart's Requiem is the type of piece made for Szell, classic in formal proportion, romantic in sentiment. As modern as he was for his time, Szell's orientation is still at times a bit too much of the 19th century to truly lift the piece to heaven the way Davis or Jansons do, but among conductors born in the 19th century, he is perhaps uniquely distinguished and perceptive in this work. 

Christian Thielemann/Munich Philharmonic: When it comes to tempi, Thielemann is surprisingly restrained and hands off, but with a truly enormous dynamic range - almost exaggerated, this is Thielemann after all, but tremendously effective. 

Christopher Hogwood/Academy of Ancient Music: The choir uses boys, and there are huge differences in the edition from the usual Sussmayr, whole sections are unrecognizably rewritten, and not in Jacobs's way for dramatic immediacy, but to literally improve Sussmayr's corrections and try to musicologically re-create a work closer to how Mozart would have completed it. Nevertheless, perhaps the novelty spurs Hogwood to a level of intensity one rarely expects from him. 

Colin Davis/BBC Symphony: The young Colin still a little bit too romantic and old-fashioned here, the slow movements are too slow and stately, but even before he turns forty, Davis gets so much right already, and you already have a sense that this will be the ultimate conductor of Mozart's Requiem. 


Daniel Barenboim/Orchestre et Ceour de Paris: A Wagnerian drama: huge, dramatic, exciting. Romantic Mozart done right. As only a truly brilliant musician can, Barenboim knows exactly how far to push an imposed concept without going overboard. Sure, everything is huge and slow and legato in the most Victorian manner, but Barenboim generally knows exactly how slow is slow enough (except in the Tuba Mirum...), and with such an overwhelming mass of sound he conjures, he can go slow indeed and still hold our attention. What prevents this recording from being ranked near the very highest echelon is that in the so crucial movements of the late Sequenza, this otherwise powerful, passionate, and even rather impressive large choir goes unforgivably flat. Given that this recording is 35 years old and how frequently Danny re-records, Barenboim is well-overdue for a remake. 

Very Good:

Rene Jacobs/Freiburg Baroque: Jacobs gonna Jacobs - he pretty much rewrites it as he goes along, some of it is the very new edition he uses, some of it is obviously Jacobs. if you dislike Jacobs, it's not for you, but there's a lot I love. The theatrical immediacy is tastable - perhaps it's almost more appropriate for Vivaldi or Handel than Mozart. In a movement like Tuba Mirum, this sort of embellished rewriting is direly necessary - it's so long and the texture so thin that there no way that Mozart viewed it as finished when he died, and Jacobs is perhaps the only plausible attempt at a completion. On the other hand, a lot of the slow movements like the Recordare don't have enough in the way of tenderness and warmth. Like Barenboim, I want to rank this much higher, but the mistakes insist upon themselves, and all the mores because, unlike Barenboim, they are ultimately mistakes of spirit, not letter. I cannot escape the feeling that as good as larger-than-life moments are, Jacobs is not interested in the warm and tender moments, and does his best to make Mozart sound like Gluck or Vivaldi. There are much worse options, but except for the Tuba Mirum and the Confutatis, it's still not really Mozart. 

Riccardo Muti/Berlin Philharmonic/Two Swedish Chamber Choirs: It's definitely too lacquered. The textures are pure Sachertorte, so high in cholesterol and sweet to the ear that one begins to suspect death comes in the form of diabetes. The Recordare is pure opera, they might as well be performing Die Meistersinger, but alongside all this voluptuousness comes passages whose touch gives off the singe of hellfire. As one might expect from Muti, the Dies Irae is one of the most fearsome on record, and the contrasts in the Confutatis are never demarcated more impressively than Muti makes them here. The bigger problem is that the Lacrimosa and Agnus Dei are too slow, collapsing under their romantic weight. Nevertheless, the whole is beautiful like a particularly gaudy cathedral; even as you're put off by the ostentation, you can smell the incense and feel the spookiness of the existential stakes. 


Peter Neumann/Collegium Cartusianum: Very intimate. It's mostly a little underpowered, and definitely too orderly - to follow this music into the sublime of the next world - the execution too precise, the phrasing too clipped, the fortes and crescendi not overwhelming enough, but it nevertheless has a true beauty. A friend of mine played me the Recordare, saying that it was a ideal 5:40 of music making, and in that movement, I found it hard to disagree. I wish there was a little more cantabile warmth in the strings when they have to sing out, but the soloists blend together with almost unprecedented magnificence and the orchestra is with them at every moment. I'm not convinced the rest is at the same level of music making, but were the rest on the level of the Recordare, or the end of the Confutatis, it would easily be a transcendent recording. 

Peter Schreier/Staatskapelle Dresden/Leipzig Radio Choir: The version I grew up on, few are more praised. It's reliable, and does everything well. Margaret Price is nothing short of angelically perfect, the Staatskapelle Dresden plays perfectly of course, the singing of the Leipzig Radio Chorus is almost beyond reproach, aside from Theo Adam's wobbly bass-baritone, the only problem is that it's all a little too sensible and orderly. The soft sections are beautifully warm, but they're not particularly soft, and the Requiem requires truly soft playing to give the loud sections context that unleashes their full power. 

Phillippe Herreweghe/Collegium Vocale Ghent: ditto.

Savall/LCDN: It's very dramatic, a huge dynamic range, incredibly well-executed, a little rigid. 

Herbert von Karajan/Vienna Philharmonic: By Karajan's final time through the Mozart Requiem of roughly a thousand, he realized he had to trim the edges of the usual funereal Mozartian soup and create something leaner. The result, while still not quite great, does find the Mozart.

Hermann Scherchen/Vienna Symphony: The choir sucks, but Scherchen's vision is overwhelming.