edalfullfor
Mozart ‘Requien
THE cathedral was
almost packed to the
doors (and so was the
car park, alas) to hear
Guildford Philharmonic
Orchestra and Choir
perform Mozart’s last
and perhaps most famous church work, the
' Requiem in D minor,
K626, last Saturday
evening.
It was a rare and very en-
couraging sight on a bitterly
cold night.
. The composition of the Re-
in Saturday’s performance.
Under the baton of the Ger-
man con_ductor, Wilfried
Boettcher, both playing and
singing was polished, with no
extremes of spiritual emotion
(no fireworks, in fact, despite
the date!), emphasising, if any- thing, the spirits of hope and
salvation rather than the gloom
of impending doom. A Tuminous performance in- a numm
ous setting. =
- Thus the graceful prayers of
the Lacrimosa and the pro-
found piety of the Agnus Dei
were, perhaps, the most im-
pressive moments of the even-
ing, elevating in more senses
than one, for in the ethereal
quiem has always been shrouded in a certain degree of _acoustics of the cathedral
much of the sweet tone of the
mystery. Was Mozart actually
sopranos ascended to the heav! affected by his mysterious (and
ens bounded by the chancel
| ghostly) guest who commisroof before echomg to the
sioned the Requiem? Did be
really believe it was to be a
|
requiem for his own early
death? And when he died prematurely, how much of it was
completed byhis faithful pupil,
- Sussmayer?
|
Whatever the solutions to
‘these romantically gloomy
questions (and most of them
t have been more or less
' answered) there was no mys-
' tery and precious little gloom
ur‘f-&’/’\
Aot caal
nave.
This strangely unworldly
~effect was also noticeable in
the splendid Offertorium, in
which the sturdy tenors proved
they were for from becoming a
dying choral race and finished
with a fine fugue — almost
surpassing
in
earlier double
Kyrie Eleison.
The
brilliance
the
forces
at-
fugue
combined
of
the
tacked Rex Tremendae, Mo-
zart’s fiercest moment, with
sudden shock, more so than
was found necessary for the
~sombre Dies Irae, but Alasteir
Miles. announced the Tuba
Mirum with a ponderous bass
which well matched the t:om-_
bone lead.
strongest, of the four young so-
loists, whose conjoint. efforts
were well suited to the testmg
- Recordare qua,rtet, though not
always in timbre.
:
Melanie Armitstead’s flut-
ing, youthfully fresh soprano
was delightfulin Lux perpetua.
John Mark Amsley s clear, natural tenor and Yvonne
Howard’s varied alto tone col-
our added laudable backing,
though
the
carriage
of solo
voices to the further ends of
the long nave was only
intermittent.
'
Herr Boettcher’s- direction
was calm and precise, Germanic in manner but never relaxing
steady
the
tempo,
and the
orchestra was well up to GPO
form, led by John Ludlow
(with Hugh Bean in close
attenda.nce)
The strings, wlnch the cathedral absorbs with so much
more sympathy than voices,
rose and fell delectablyin Mozart’s early symphony, No. 25
in
G
minor (K.I183), which
filled the first half of the programme. And here maestro
Boettcher proved conclusively
his justified reputation as a
master of Mozartian orchestral
music.
Finally, it was pleasant to
see Neville Creed sharing the
plaudits on his first major suc-
cess as chorus master for the
Philharmonic Choir. His thor-
ough
training
no doubt en-
abled the choir to deal with the
latest edition of the Requiem,
by Franz_ cher in 1979 suc-
;