what:
Mozart's Requiem (Levin ed.) performed by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
where: Roy Thompson
Hall
when: March 21. 2003 8pm
If you have never heard Mozart's Requiem, this is a mass that must be embraced
for it's dark beauty. Although Mozart lived in the Classical era of music
history, this mass is the true mark of the beginnings of Romanticism. Even the
great Beethoven himself could see the romantic genius of Mozart's last and
unfinished work.
The Requiem beyond being romantic in musical quality was also written under
darkly romantic circumstances. An anonymous man commissioned Mozart to write
the mass. Mozart began to believe that his writing of the Requiem was killing
him and that in the end it would be for himself. When he died, the Requiem was
incomplete; he had only composed it 6 bars into the Lacrimosa.
The Requiem was however completed by Sussmayr, a pupil of Mozart who also had
helped Mozart put his final bars of the requiem to paper. Using Mozart's
sketches and the instructions that were dictated to Sussmayr from Mozart's
deathbed, the Requiem was finished. Through out the years musical scholars have
strove to recomplete the Requiem to make the harmonies more Mozart-like rather
than leave what they believed was Sussmayr's insensitive scoring.
One of these possibly improved versions is that of Robert Levin which was
performed by the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir under the baton of Noel Edison. As a
modern collaboration of classical music and dance, Robert Desrosier
choreographed an overall insensitive and distracting visual expression to
accompany Mozart's Requiem. This fusion was something I had anxiously been
anticipating; however it was disappointing. It wasn't until the last 3
movements where the choreography beautified the music, even though it seemed to
express a different meaning than that of the Requiem. It is true that this is a
mass for the dead, however within it are celebrations of life and God's glory.
This celebration was never effectively expressed as the dancers always moved in
flailing sombreness and delicately dying at the ends of most movements.
However, although the choreography was inadequate the dancers performed it
exquisitely.
The musical performance was an extraordinary experience. The first few chords
of Rex Tremendae were overwhelmingly powerful, breathtaking, and emotive. Just
hearing those chords made the $65 ticket worth it to me. There are few choirs
in Canada that would be able to create such a powerful sound as the 180 person
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, that were joined by their 50 person Youth Choir. My
only disappointment was the end. I cannot say whether it was Noel Edison's
interpretation of the final chord as something quietly sustained rather than
having a more forte finish, or that this is how it is scored by Robert Levin.
However I found the ending anti-climatic. If Mozart had completed this work I
am certain it would have left his mourners tearfully awestruck.
review by Pingugirl
March 22, 2003
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