Grabmusik, cantata for soloists, choir & orchestra, K. 42 (K. 35a): Betracht dies Herz
Vesperae solennes de confessore, for soloists, chorus & orchestra, K. 339: Laudate Dominum
Essentially following the Süssmayr completion of Mozart's Requiem in D minor, but incorporating aspects of scholarly revisions by Franz Beyer and Robert D. Levin, Claudio Abbado leads the Swedish Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic in a satisfying performance that strikes a balance between two schools of thought. On the one hand, using Süssmayr's edition is the conventional approach and long sanctioned because it contained Mozart's deathbed instructions, however imperfectly realized by his assistant. On the other hand, ...
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Essentially following the Süssmayr completion of Mozart's Requiem in D minor, but incorporating aspects of scholarly revisions by Franz Beyer and Robert D. Levin, Claudio Abbado leads the Swedish Radio Choir and the Berlin Philharmonic in a satisfying performance that strikes a balance between two schools of thought. On the one hand, using Süssmayr's edition is the conventional approach and long sanctioned because it contained Mozart's deathbed instructions, however imperfectly realized by his assistant. On the other hand, thanks to Beyer and Levin, there are refinements to the score that improve on Süssmayr's handiwork, mostly in making the harmonic progressions and orchestration flow more smoothly and idiomatically, and in particular, in handling the trombone parts with greater flexibility. Abbado's tempos are a bit faster than traditional recorded versions, which is more in keeping with historically informed scholarship, and the overall feeling of the performance is light and lucid, despite the...
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