VoxCarnyx

City Halls Glasgow

Mozart’s Requiem will forever pose the question “what if?”. If only he’d finished it, what level of masterpiece would we have been gifted? What happened is the stuff of myth, bordering on conspiracy. 

In short, Mozart was dying in 1791 and desperately accepted a clandestine commission from one Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach via a mysterious agent. The Count, notorious for exercising ridiculous vanity projects in which he passed off such purchased works as his own, faced a dilemma when Mozart inconveniently died before completion. In a bid to fulfil the contract, Mozart’s wife charged his pupil Franz Süssmayr to finish the job, which is the version most commonly heard today, and which the SCO and SCO Chorus addressed to a packed City Halls on Friday.

These are forces that know their onions when it comes to Mozart. Gregory Batsleer’s choristers are a tight, gripping ensemble, even-toned throughout with just the right amount of pizazz, their compact numbers commensurate with the sleek, steely Classical machine that is the SCO. Even with a scoring that incorporates three trombones, it was remarkable to witness the elegant agility from that trio perfectly aligned to this performance’s sophisticated containment.

From Italian conductor Riccardo Minasi came a lead that was both urgent and passionate, rarely outstepping stylistic bounds. Where there was ravishing mystery in the opening bars and in many of those reflective sections within the Sequentia, there was also a living, breathing buoyancy enlivening the fugal Kyrie, belligerent Dies Irae and soul-stirring Offertorium. Subtleties in dynamic control gave voice to the most magical pianissimos, the Chorus’ verbal projection impressive at every level, the SCO forever attentive in support. 

Much was to be admired, too, in the solo vocal quartet, particularly distinguished by the cut-glass purity of tenor Julien Henric and affecting lyricism of bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch. Mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp and soprano Louise Alder may have been less-consistently matched, not always in perfect step with the exactitude of the prevailing performance style, but both found moments of blissful magic with which to compensate. Perhaps complicit, Minasi’s gestural tendency to over-conduct led to periodic glitches in the rhythmic flow.

What was really striking about this performance, though, was the extent to which it revealed the unmistakable depth of personality in Mozart’s writing – those bits he did write – that wasn’t always as evident with Haydn in the evening’s partner work, the older composer’s war-inspired Paukenmesse. 

There’s no doubting the merits of the latter, not least the quirky colouring in the closing Agnus Dei where timpanist Louise Lewis Goodwin’s wooden-sticked rat-tat-tats conjured up a valedictory martial air. The delivery – using mostly the same forces as the Mozart – was unquestionably sound and faithful to the score; it just seemed, in this case, a tad functional, like the short before the main feature, selling it more as an off-the-shelf offering from a dutiful composer than a rare masterpiece. 

Ken Walton