For nearly two centuries the accepted version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem – which was left unfinished at the time of his death in 1791 – was that of Franz Xaver Süssmayr. While there had been other composers in the 1790s and early 1800s who worked on it and finished it, it was Süssmayr’s that ended up being the official version despite some obvious and glaring compositional flaws.
Much more recently two musicologists, Richard Maunder and Robert Levin, have completed the work with greater respect to Mozart’s style than that found in the earlier attempts. Of the two, Levin’s version has been the more highly regarded and performed. This isn’t surprising, since in addition to being a noted musicologist and renowned pianist Levin (who has appeared as a soloist with the Utah Symphony on several occasions over the years) is also this generation’s leading authority on Mozart. And it will be Levin’s version of the Requiem that will be performed this weekend by the Utah Symphony and Chorus under the baton of noted 18th century expert Bernard Labadie.
Bernard Labadie
In a phone interview from his home in Quebec City, Labadie told Reichel Recommends why he prefers Levin’s completion. “Robert does a masterful job in cleaning up the score,” he said. “What I like is that he did not set aside whole blocks of the (Requiem) where there is no proof that they’re not by Mozart. Süssmayr said that he wrote the Sanctus, the Benedictus and the Agnus Dei, but Robert makes a strong case that there is still Mozart in the music and that these movements just need to be cleaned up.”
Another point that supports Levin’s claim that these three movements were at least partly sketched by Mozart is the fact that there is “a thematic connection between these and other parts of the Requiem, and that is foreign to Süssmayr’s style,” Labadie said. “And this interconnection between movements is typical of Mozart’s mature style.”
Labadie added that Levin, whom he considers the “greatest Mozart scholar and specialist today,” spent years working and honing his completion of the Requiem. “Robert did it over a long period of time. His first version was for his Ph.D. thesis.”
Levin kept reworking it and it was Helmuth Rilling who commissioned Levin to complete it and get it ready for performance. Rilling conducted the world premiere in August 1991 at his European Music Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. “I was in Stuttgart at the time studying with John Eliot Gardiner, and I went to the premiere.”
As far as Labadie is concerned, Levin’s completion is the only valid version of the Requiem, and it’s the only one he uses. The Canadian conductor recorded it in 2001 with his two ensembles, Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec.
Joining the symphony and chorus this weekend will be soloists Shannon Mercer, soprano; Anita Krause, mezzo-soprano; Colin Balzer, tenor; and Tyler Duncan, bass.
For the first half of the concert, Labadie has chosen a lighter program: the Chaconne from the ballet music to Mozart’s opera seria Idomeneo and Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 101 (Clock). “I wanted a lighter and sunnier first half,” he said. “And I wanted to do the Chaconne, because nobody ever does it, and it is the only interesting piece in the ballet.” The Chaconne opens the ballet sequence and leads immediately into the next movement. “It is never isolated so I had to write a short concert ending.”
CONCERT INFO:
- What: Utah Symphony and Chorus, Bernard Labadie, conductor
- Venue: Abravanel Hall
- Time and Date: 8 p.m. April 27-28
- Tickets: $20-$70, $10 students (tickets are priced $5 higher when purchased on day of performance)
- Phone: 801-355-2787 or 888-451-2787
- Web: www.utahsymphony.org