Requiem (Harnoncourt) (2006)

"It is well known that Mozart left his Requiem incomplete on his death in 1791, and that his widow Constanze engaged his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete it. It is also generally admitted that Süssmayr's use of Mozart's sombre orchestration is often opaque and unsubtle. Franz Beyer's edition of the score, published in 1971, is the first serious attempt to present the work as Mozart himself might have wished it to sound. Nikolaus Harnoncourt is not the first conductor to have recorded Beyer's edition, but his very individual way with Mozart commands respect. In this case Harnoncourt uses a specialist orchestra playing on 'original' instruments: the Vienna Concentus Musicus (their instruments are all identified and dated). But the performance is not 'old-fashioned', for although it uses for the most part 18th-century instruments, the pitch is modern and the soloists and chorus include female as well as male singers. The performance is full-blooded and dramatic." (Gramophone; klik op link voor hele tekst)