Music Review
Mozart’s Requiem
& Respighi’s Nativity
Burgate Singers
Diss Corn Hall
The 1790s were an extraordinary period. The world was in ferment, with war on land and sea, the French Revolution, Rights of Man, Mary Wollstonecraft’s works, the Gothic novel and secret societies everywhere.
The flames of the dying century produced a Requiem by the dying Mozart, around which a mythology of subterfuge has grown. Was he poisoned? Did someone else complete his work?
The Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) section would have apocalyptic significance for many at the end of a century. The hell and pit language of the Offertorium picks up on the Gothic style of the time.
As balm for troubled times it never dates. Under Alain Judd’s direction the singers, soloists and orchestra seemed to pick up on the zeitgeist of those days.
Stormy, with visions of fire and brimstone, pleas for divine mercy, gratitude for the coming of grace – all these moods found high expression.
Ask any musician – Respighi’s Nativity needs good soloists, a strong male section, Italian lessons, fine oboists and two complementary pianists.
Apart from having just one pianist, the performance featured some of the most musical shepherds who ever burst into song.
It had murmuring warmth, full-throttle praise and the gentlest of Amens, impassioned solos from Aurelia Jonvaux and Catherine Parkin and woodwind with hints of the Renaissance.
This was a concert at times almost overwhelming in its emotion and depiction of the world at the brink.
BASIL ABBOTT