Requiem: Mozart's Death in Words and Music

Under the baton of Manfred Honeck the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra offers an extraordinary and deep interpretation of one of the great works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the unfinished Requiem, tragically turned into the requiem of the great composer.

F. Murray Abraham, winner of an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the film Amadeus, joins Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra for this dramatic conception of Requiem: Mozart's death in lyrics and music. He delivers moving fragments of the Apocalypse, as well as a letter directed by Mozart to his father in April 1787, describing his peace with death, which contextualizes the music that he would finally compose for the Requiem.

This is an enriched version, with the addition of several other pieces, in a meditation on the death of Mozart that Honeck assembled from the Requiem and other religious compositions, Austrian funeral traditions, selected readings and Gregorian song.

Of course, Amadeus is fiction, but as in any solid biopic, this fiction is not fully invented. Mozart's Requiem is pure mystery, no other work of classical music is as wrapped in gloomy legends as Wolfgang Mozart's swan song. This new project by Master Honeck around the last and unfinished masterpiece of Mozart is very welcome.

The juxtapositions between texts and music reveal the acute dramatic sense of the director, and some of these combinations are inspiring. One of the spectacular moments takes place when a fragment of the Apocalypse read by F. Murray Abraham on the day of anger leads directly to a passionate interpretation of the 'Dies Irae' of the Requiem by the impressive choir.

Honeck extracts an incredible dynamic level from both the orchestra and the choir, with precision and vigor. As always happens, many of the most emotional moments are the most serene, such as when the concert closes with the tan of the last three bells. While they resonate, there is a great suspense on both the stage and in the plate.