By Bryant Manning, Chicago Sun-Times
February 9, 2010
Mozart's gloriously cryptic Requiem in D Minor seems to thrive on its own muddled history. Music of the Baroque's music director Jane Glover writes in her scholarly but popular book Mozart's Women that the composer labored over his magnum opus with his own funeral in mind. Others scholars are understandably more skeptical, arguing that the Requiem as a final Mozartian prayer is too conveniently allegorical.
Historical quibbles aside, Glover's studious insight and idealistic notions of this music came together for a highly personalized reading of this oft-performed masterpiece on Friday night at a sold-out Harris Theater, when she conducted her Music of the Baroque ensemble through a gripping and ultimately consoling journey through Mozart's unfinished work. By using the customary but flawed Sussmayr version (a pupil of Mozart), Glover opted for period authenticity—basset horns and all.
In the Kyrie, there were alarmingly accelerated tempos but they would serve as more of a brisk, introductory jolt. The Dies Irae showed a stalwart brass section that never stole from the chorus' thunder, and vocals and instruments alike worked in magical accord during the stirring Offertorium. In the Lacrimosa, they made subtle use of its big, swelling fortes.
The serviceable quartet of vocalists—Arianna Zukerman, Phyllis Pancella, Scott Ramsay and Stephen Morscheck—all sang ardently, while William Jon Gray's chorus provided lovely, if underwhelming, readings of the Latin texts. Zukerman's rich soprano soared meltingly over the stunning quartet in the "Recordare," the jaw-dropping lyrical moment of the concert.
Glover elicited a fairly literal, if sober, version of the final Lux aeterna, keeping any interpretive surprises to herself. Here was a Requiem that emphasized Mozart's graceful embrace of death, and not the tragic account celebrated in Peter Shaeffer's excellent film "Amadeus."
Mozart's earlier Symphony No. 29, K. 201 painted a nice alternative portrait to the dying Mozart, here with Wolfgang as a precocious adolescent. The opening Allegro was wonderfully balanced with stringwork that seemed to dance, and a lightly shaded andante, replete with clean, transparent textures. To Glover's and the orchestra's credit, they unflinchingly finished the music even as a violist, who appeared to have a health concern, dropped her viola with a resounding smash during the final Allegro.
