Mozart: Requiem (Reconstruction of first performance)

Featuring

Joanne Lunn
Rowan Hellier
Thomas Hobbs
Matthew Brook
John Butt
Dunedin Consort

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Performer Biography

John Butt, the musical director of the Dunedin Consort, is also the Gardiner Professor of Music at the University of Glasgow and a distinguished scholar of Bach's music.

Recording & Production

This recording of Mozart's Requiem aims to reconstruct its first public performance, which took place on January 2, 1793, in Vienna.

Interpretation

The Dunedin Consort's performance of the Requiem features a chorus of approximately 16 singers, led by the four soloists, reflecting a common practice in 17th and 18th-century European choral music.

Compositional Technique

Mozart's Requiem incorporates a blend of traditional church music elements, like plainsong cantus firmus and fugue, with the dramatic flair and lyricism found in his operas and concert works.

Composition History

Mozart's Requiem has been a source of controversy since his death, with ongoing debate about how much of the work was composed by Mozart himself and how much by Franz Xaver Süssmayr, his student.

Recording & Production

This recording utilizes David Black's new edition of Franz Xaver Süssmayr's completion of the Requiem, which clarifies Mozart's original contributions and Süssmayr's additions.

Composition History

The first public performance of the Requiem was a benefit concert for Mozart's widow, Constanze, promoted by his friend and patron, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, in Vienna.