Prom 26: Mozart’s Requiem - 7.08.19

[DracoM]

Succinctly put - share with much of that.

[CallMePaul]

I didn’t realize that NS had become a Conductor. One wonders if she has some individual ideas about how the choral work should go that most Conductors wouldn’t have, and if she was perhaps less than 100% successful in communication about those ideas to the chorus, and if any issues arose as a result...

I did note that we were told that the chorus and soloists were all singing from memory (which is, of course, unusual in a choral concert and I have certainly never heard of such a large chorus performing without scores before). Was this a decision of the conductor and if so why? If not her decision, then whose was it and again why was it decided upon? Did anyone who was at the concert note whether or not the work was conducted from memory? Maybe this will be answered on Sunday on BBC4 but I will not be able to watch.

[jonfan]

PROM 26 MOZART K626.
(Chorusmaster Adrian Partington/Sols/BBCNOW/Stutzmann. RADIO 3 AAC 320 Live. Excellent soloists/choral/orch. balance of notable clarity, good depth and wide dynamic range. Very quiet pps. Big sound with Soft Power!.)

A truly exceptional Mozart Requiem.

Even on a purely technical level, the choral/orchestral balance was clean and clear throughout, with sharply defined rhythms and keenly articulated sung text. No fuzziness or cloudiness here!
I could hear almost every word, sung as if it really were the day of reckoning.
Rhythms were kept strikingly buoyant, lifted, light or punchy as apt, microdynamic subtlety of both orchestra and chorus always drawing your ear into the music. Which tonight reminded you vividly of why this work has taken on such a mortal, immortal, mythical quality in the wider culture.

Soloists sang well alone or as a quartet, the tenor showed some strain and intonation problems, but he isn’t often exposed so this didn’t trouble me too much.

Among so many highlights - the fast fiery Dies Irae; lugubrious, ruminative bass/trombone duet in the tuba mirum (Stravinsky’s Pulcinella came to mind in this often neo-classically shaped reading); the superbly angry rex tremendae, then the (very!) hushed, much slower contrast of the brief, precious imploring of the salva me…(similarly in the superbly-paced confutatis/voca me).
The delicate traceries of the violins in the ricordare, so light and classically idiomatic, again with fine quartet singing here.

The subtle, sensitive choral work was compelling, perhaps the defining feature tonight with some marvellously clear articulation, whether soft and low or high dynamic impact).
So great credit to the chorus master Adrian Partington, who along with all the other performers, and the fluidly expressive but finely-controlled direction from Nathalie Stutzmann gave me a Prom Performance to remember.

Agree in spades with Jayne about this performance. I hope this can be a candidate for a BBC Music Magazine CD. This was a great Mozart Requiem full of joy in a strange way with pointed rhythms and extreme dynamic contrasts to bring forward the immediacy of communication with never a dull moment. Wonderful high delicate string playing in the Lacrimosa and time stood still in heaven for me at Sempiternam. The chorus were on top form, obviously all eyes on the conductor for the slightest nuances. Those above who detected intonation problems throughout must all possess a faulty wireless as I thought everything was spot on. Adrian P must be very proud of his choir to sing all that from memory. The times I’ve been asked to do that in a
choir I’ve felt most uncomfortable and exposed. (There was a memorable Beethoven Ninth sung from memory by the CBSO Chorus some years ago which must rank as an equal feat of memory.) I think one can either sight-read or memorise, not both. Soloists very good but a nervous start for the tenor and how wonderful to have the incomparable Nicola HT introducing, the true voice of the BBCNOW.

[Pulcinella]

Agree in spades with Jayne about this performance. I hope this can be a candidate for a BBC Music Magazine CD. This was a great Mozart Requiem full of joy in a strange way with pointed rhythms and extreme dynamic contrasts to bring forward the immediacy of communication with never a dull moment. Wonderful high delicate string playing in the Lacrimosa and time stood still in heaven for me at Sempiternam. The chorus were on top form, obviously all eyes on the conductor for the slightest nuances. Those above who detected intonation problems throughout must all possess a faulty wireless as I thought everything was spot on. Adrian P must be very proud of his choir to sing all that from memory. The times I’ve been asked to do that in a
choir I’ve felt most uncomfortable and exposed. (There was a memorable Beethoven Ninth sung from memory by the CBSO Chorus some years ago which must rank as an equal feat of memory.) I think one can either sight-read or memorise, not both. Soloists very good but a nervous start for the tenor and how wonderful to have the incomparable Nicola HT introducing, the true voice of the BBCNOW.

There has been a BBC MM CD already, with BBC forces (which is not to say that there couldn't be another):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mozart-Requiem-Symphony-No-Linz/dp/B012L7D0NS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Mozart+requiem+belohlavek&qid=1565298597&s=gateway&sr=8-1

[gurnemanz]

I've just caught up with the Mozart Requiem and am very much in the jayne/jonfan camp. Thanks to them for putting into words how I reacted to the performance. I have great respect for Nathalie Stutzmann and have a good collection of her Shumann and Schubert Lieder recordings. I would like to have been in the Haĺl. Lots of interpretive touches allowed me to hear things I had not heard before or in a slightly new way. How sad that Jayne was driven away by another contributor's discourteous comments.

[richardfinegold]

Should Mozart’s Requiem be joyous and sprightly, to paraphrase some of the descriptions of this Concert?. I always thought that it was meant to scare the pants off of the listener while holding out a fig leaf of consolation.
My favorite memory of this work was hearing a Community Orchestra perform it in our town on a Sunday afternoon. My wife is Catholic, and after the Concert remarked that if she had known the subject matter of the Concert, would have skipped Mass that day.

[oddoneout]

Should Mozart’s Requiem be joyous and sprightly, to paraphrase some of the descriptions of this Concert?. I always thought that it was meant to scare the pants off of the listener while holding out a fig leaf of consolation.
My favorite memory of this work was hearing a Community Orchestra perform it in our town on a Sunday afternoon. My wife is Catholic, and after the Concert remarked that if she had known the subject matter of the Concert, would have skipped Mass that day.

I don't know about sprightly - I used the term nimble to describe the choir's performance of some of the sections, but arguably joyous yes, for parts of the Requiem - the hope of redemption and a better life ahead, and praising the one who makes that possible. A good performance will strike the balance between the 'scare the pants off', the more reflective/penitential, and the praise.
One of the things that seems to happen with the Mozart Requiem, in my view, is a tendency to wallow; perhaps because of the backstory, perhaps the nature of some of the music. Whatever the faults of this performance it didn't do that.
Did your wife skip Mass the following Sunday as she had had a double dose already?

[cloughie]

I did note that we were told that the chorus and soloists were all singing from memory (which is, of course, unusual in a choral concert and I have certainly never heard of such a large chorus performing without scores before). Was this a decision of the conductor and if so why? If not her decision, then whose was it and again why was it decided upon? Did anyone who was at the concert note whether or not the work was conducted from memory? Maybe this will be answered on Sunday on BBC4 but I will not be able to watch.

As a chorister I would guess it was the decision of the conductor - would choristers voluntarily drop their prop? The plus for the conductor is gaining the full concentration of the whole choir.

[jonfan]

Should Mozart’s Requiem be joyous and sprightly, to paraphrase some of the descriptions of this Concert?. I always thought that it was meant to scare the pants off of the listener while holding out a fig leaf of consolation.
My favorite memory of this work was hearing a Community Orchestra perform it in our town on a Sunday afternoon. My wife is Catholic, and after the Concert remarked that if she had known the subject matter of the Concert, would have skipped Mass that day.

It’s interesting to note that Verdi and Berlioz try to scare the pants off the listener in their Requiems when they both take an agnostic view of Christianity and where we go after death. Faure and Durufle console the listener whereas Mozart uplifts one. (A broad generalisation I admit!) Is it coincidence that Mozart uses the four note opening of Handel’s ‘And with his stripes we are healed’ in the opening and closing fugues?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've cleared this Thread of "slung mud", to concentrate on comments on the performance - from now on, all comments on "valves" will be confined to those used by the Horns & Trumpets! This has necessitated the removal of quite a few Posts replying to the Mud, for which my apologies. (I have, at least, been even-handed - using two of them - and deleted a couple of Hosts' posts, too. ).

I have an awful lot of "catching-up" to do (entertainingly busy this past week) - and the Thread has made me very interested to hear this performance.

[DracoM]

As a chorister I would guess it was the decision of the conductor - would choristers voluntarily drop their prop? The plus for the conductor is gaining the full concentration of the whole choir.

.......as a man fallen in sea might grab a lifejacket?

[Tony Halstead]

.......as a man fallen in sea might grab a lifejacket?

[oddoneout]

Is singing the Mozart Requiem from memory really such a feat? The words are straightforward and familiar(from the several settings in the repertoire) to many singers, unlike for instance the LvB 9 referred to earlier, and many singers will also be familiar with the music. Opera chorus singers have to memorise their parts and also deal with movement around the stage.
It's a confidence and custom thing isn't it? Choirs sing from the parts, but I suspect they could make a pretty good fist of some of the warhorses if they were told to put their music down. I know it's something we do occasionally in our choir(I wish it were more often) during rehearsal to get the men's heads up and everybody paying more attention to what is going on around them. 'Man and boy' choristers in singing churches could probably do many services without the music.
Now my eyesight is much poorer(slow to react to changes) I find it beneficial to memorise as much as possible, especially where there is a high note count to bar line ratio!

[jayne lee wilson]

More comment here....

http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_prom_review.php?id=16705

[edashtav]

More comment here....
http://www.classicalsource.com/db_co...w.php?id=16705

Chris Capsell wrote in that review re the performance of Brahms' Tragic Overture,"work. Nathalie Stutzmann’s shapely and vibrant presentation kept the action flowing with little tendency to wallow into despair; a fiery start to the concert." I would dissent only by noting that Nathalie never allowed things to wallow; everything was taut and well focussed: just the ticket for a overture to start a concert and for a piece prefacing Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan, a work that wallows, self-indulgently, that I tend to avoid it. To be be fair, I allowed the broadcast to run on whilst I was typing my comments on the Brahms, and I found that Nathalie Stutzmann trod a careful path, avoiding cloying sentimentality: well done!