Mozart’s Requiem - Pygmalion
I found myself, in the middle of my high school experience one summer, outside the influence of my own parents and a guest at my best friend’s aunt and uncle’s house. He’d talked them up something big, ensuring that our week away from home on the other side of town would make for a wonderful time. There were events planned, such as concerts, good meals, and a new way of life. Nothing was ever so dramatic, but one evening after his uncle burned the pork ribs, we retired in their sumptuous living room, where a script unfolded (again, for my friend) that I might not have imagined.
It was announced that the lights would go out and that we would, together, the two adults and the two of us visiting from some thirty miles away, would experience Mozart in the dark.
At this point in my life, I’d discovered classical music first by way of Mozart, then I firmly settled on getting to know Bach. I was by no means an expert, as I was literally learning about all this music, its history, style, performance issues through reading under the cloak of darkness. While my parents liked music, it felt strange listening to classical in their presence. So I did it in secret.
The fact that this family not only played Mozart on their hifi, but had a tradition around mouthing to the words of his Requiem, which I’d learn more about when watching the movie Amadeus, was eye-opening. This music, which seemed so serious and solemn, was being celebrated and enjoyed in the company of others. I’ve never forgotten this experience. When a friend recently reached out to ask me about Mozart’s Requiem he asked me, “I seem to remember some story you told me, maybe? I can’t remember. About singing the mass in the dark? Was that you?”
Last May I wrote about the new recording by Savall. I liked it a lot. This time around I wanted to provide some comments about the recording that appeared this October from Pygmalion, directed by its founder, Raphaël Pichon. The arresting cover aside, what does this French ensemble have to convey about this work?
With twenty-two tracks, Pichon is presenting more than just the requiem mass, he’s inserting other pieces, including plainchant and earlier pieces by Mozart. While augmenting a mass with extra music is part of church practice, there’s no historical context for including these pieces. However, I am not sure these additions are altogether a bad idea; taken alone, they illustrate some pieces by Mozart for which I was completely unfamiliar. Secondarily, they help frame the piece as something that helps us celebrate this composer. And should you want the original movements together, of course, we can exclude these extra tracks.
I want to comment on this recording without focusing too much on the novelty of the programming of older pieces alongside the Requiem. These additions shouldn’t be the only rationale for a new recording. I will therefore discuss the additions separately.
Additions to the Mass
The recording begins and ends with a plainchant recitation by a male treble, who I am assuming is a minor. Chadi Lazreq sings well and these tracks alone set the mood.
The next movement is a four part canon for voices, Ach, zu kurz ist unsers Lebenslauf. The piece is beautiful, and the sound of the four soloists singing in counterpoint is clear and affective. The thing that is shocking, perhaps, is the different vocal production of the treble, without vibrato, and then hearing the two women use vibrato, somewhat more openly than the men do. The next piece, labeled Misere mei is a choral number, with vibrato disappearing from the environment.
I’ll say here what I said to myself later in my first audition of the recording: it’s cool that a vocalist is directing this production and that attention to detail with singing is apparent. The amount of dynamic contrast that Pichon gets from the choir in that third track is remarkable.
Odd amongst the additional pieces is the Solfeggio in F, K. 393/2, which is realized by Chadi Lazreq again. The piece doesn’t have words, but instead puts the singer in the position to use his voice as a solo instrument of sorts; the flavor of the piece is genial and light, which is a great contrast from the far more dramatic solo for bass, Ne pulvis et cinis. The genial nature is carried into the Quis te comprenendat for choir and orchestra. The final addition, for solo alto, O Gottes Lamm subjects us to constant vibrato. Beth Taylor is a celebrated operatic singer, and that’s the rub here for me, subjecting us to two styles of singing.
Mass finished by Süssmayr
The opening of Mozart’s Requiem is now so common to my ears that it is hard for me to imagine what people experience the first time hearing it; the darkness of that basset horn, the eventual big and dramatic cadence before the choir enters. Pichon’s tempo is a bit slow for me, but is no disqualification, his chosen tempo with the intensity of singing and orchestral forces together is something to admire, even if I think we miss out on a little bit of what I think Mozart was trying to do with rhythm from the strings.
Ying Feng’s appearance as soloist too employs vibrato, but her style I think works better for me, employing vibrato more sparingly.
Most remarkable for me is Pichon’s command of dynamics and how the orchestra’s support seems to follow in perfect intensity with the choir. The recording engineer has managed to capture well the transparency of voices in the choir, which is thirty-six strong. When they take a collective breath it’s surprising how much reverb is present in their environment; the fact that that level of transparency is possible with an authentic church acoustic is remarkable.
The tempo kicks in the Kyrie. The contrast with the first movement now seems to take a logical shape. Pichon’s leading the Dies irae shows his energy and attention to detail as a singer. The piece is so delicious I couldn’t help but re-listen multiple times. Nothing so energetic was heard that night when I was in high school, trying my best to play along, pretending that I was singing along. This performance brought me tears, each and every time I replayed the track.
The amount of control on display in the Tuba mirum was remarkable; not only the brilliance of the trombone timbre, but the control by bass Alex Rosen. Laurence Kilsby, the tenor soloist, for me too exhibits to much vibrato. He’s a good match with Beth Taylor, but ultimately, I’d like to hear everyone on the same page with vocal style.
Listen to how the “R”s are enunciated at the start of the Rex tremendae. That’s attention to detail. It’s a delicious one, too! I also really liked the intensity by which Pichon opens the movement and quietly ends it; the transition to the aforementioned Solfeggio nearly requires it.
The Recordare changes mood significantly; it’s Mozart’s choice here to bring out the soloists. The orchestral opening is well-done; the blend of the soloists is good, even with their different dramatic inflections. The opening of the Offertorium, Domine Jesu Christe is full of energy that I found a bit surprising, yet pleasantly so. Again, we get the benefit of hearing the detail of each soloist when they come in. I wish everyone could appreciate just how well this production has been recorded and how integrated the different parts are in service of the music, the orchestra, choir, and soloists.
The Sanctus is another example of how Mozart was using the strings to give us some rhythmic energy during long-held sung text; he’s done the same thing in the opening movement of the mass, but here the effect is more obvious in Pichon’s interpretation.
The last few movements of the Requiem for me have always been less enjoyable; they do not seem to me to have the same genius touch that the first half has; of course, we know that Mozart died before completing the mass. The Agnus Dei successfully for me, however, matches the minor-mode, serious style in which the mass opens, with some of the more hopeful style that begins to set in through the piece’s formal design. Repeating the content from the opening in the Communio is either by Mozart’s or Süssmayr’s design, a good move, for helping unify the musical material across the entire experience. What’s special about this interpretation, for me, is the deliberate infusion of dynamics that are equally heard from the choir and orchestra.
Beyond Pichon’s work to infuse dramatic intensity through this performance by itself, I think his artistic choices are well-intentioned. Some other recordings almost sound lazy in comparison, without as clear an intention by all involved to squeeze more from the notes on the page.
Final Notes
HIPP or historically-informed performance practice is not only a reaction to hear music the way it was originally intended; while there are different opinions and understanding of what HIPP is (not agreed-upon by all), some have advocated for the philosophical approach to older music to be relevant not to a dead audience from the past, but today’s living audiences.
It’s in this vein that I see Pichon’s desire to combine Mozart’s well-known requiem mass with additional music; the additions for me add value to the experience. It’s not historical in concept, but it does speak to the desire of contemporary musicians to reach today’s audience; the magic of the final plainchant, realized by both choir and the aforementioned treble, Chadi Lazreq, helps us (or more rightly, me) put into context what we just heard. Mozart’s legacy is firmly around his contributions to instrumental and operatic genres. His Requiem is difficult to understand as church music in the context of baroque forms, as it most definitely borrows from the dramatic influences of opera. It’s in this same guise that the desire by Beethoven to combine choral forces with a symphony aren’t that far off. The inclusion of plainchant helps us to re-center this as a religious work. The unfinished vocal canon, even more, adds value to this performance.
I did want to say that even if you program-out the additional tracks, the movements we recognize as Mozart’s Requiem mass are among the best on record. As I have stated, Pichon’s interpretive talents are on display here, commanding all those involved to react to the possibilities left to us in a collaborative score. His solutions for me make good musical sense and are stylistically intelligent. Getting really clear diction in this recording, despite the reverb, is a nod not only to Pichon but also engineer Hugues Deschaux. This recording’s clarity and the transparency afforded to the choir and soloists is masterful. I wish more recordings were at this level. It’s akin to a painting with more detail, more saturated colors. Maybe the cover art speaks to this in a way that words cannot.
My primary criticism of this recording lies with the choice to use soloists who have been trained for the operatic stage, using constant vibrato. The historical aspect aside, I am not a fan of this vocal style for period music. Even though all the soloists employed vibrato, the effect was more tolerable by the soprano and bass. I know this may not come to the forefront for many listeners, and I also recognize that using operatic singers for these solo parts in the context of a contemporary performance may be what Pichon wanted. Going back to the Savall recording from May 2023, the vocal style by his soloists made me smile. That said, I feel compelled to rate this new recording higher, even given my high praise for the Savall. The overall interpretation, the energy, the cohesion among forces, the attention to diction, and the superior sound quality warrant it.
And yes, despite my reservations on the vibrato, this is something you’ll want to spend time with. Despite this piece being familiar to me and likely to you, this recording is a great way to end the calendar year, discovering an ensemble that has set out to more fully showcase Mozart and his his friend Süssmayr’s genius.
