Boston Classical Review

“Death comes unexpectedly!” roars Karl Malden’s minister in the movie Pollyanna. While that’s not always the case, it can come quickly enough. Just ask Wolfgang Amadé Mozart who, in the course of only about two weeks, went from hale to the grave.

Left next to his deathbed was the unfinished manuscript of a Requiem Mass that quickly became the stuff of legend. Commissioned by a certain Franz von Walsegg, the incomplete torso was eventually finished by Franz Xaver Süssmayr and his version remains the most frequently performed.

But Süssmayr’s isn’t the last word and, in recent decades, Franz Beyer, H. C. Robbins Landon, and Masato Suzuki (son of Masaaki), among others, have sought to improve upon his effort. On Friday night, the Handel & Haydn Society’s artistic director Jonathan Cohen opted for one of those alternatives, namely Robert D. Levin’s 1991 adaptation of the work, to open their season at Symphony Hall.

The Cambridge-based scholar-artist has spent a lifetime studying, performing, editing, and channeling Mozart and his devotion is evident in this performing edition. While adhering to Süssmayr’s basic structure, Levin paid close heed to the details of Mozart’s style, especially his late-period embrace of Baroque contrapuntal practices. The results mainly sound leaner and cleaner than before—some of the voice-leading is clarified and instrumentation refined—but there are also a couple of clear additions to his reworking.

The most striking involves the interpolation of a fugal “Amen” chorus at the end of the “Lacrymosa.” Based on a sketch of Mozart’s, it’s about as musically authentic a thing as can be hoped for in such an undertaking. Yet the vigor of the section undercuts the mournful nature of what comes before; what’s more, there’s nothing else quite like it in the rest of the Requiem.

On Friday, those issues were somewhat mitigated by Cohen’s swift tempo in the “Lacrymosa,” which lent this depiction of “the day of tears and mourning” an unexpectedly lilting character. 

That was the night’s only real interpretive misfire. Otherwise, Cohen’s focused, shapely, well-directed account of the Requiem tended to emphasize the fact that Mozart, at his death, was working at the height of his creative powers. Pity Süssmayer: he had an impossible, thankless task and, even without Levin’s help, did about as well as could be expected from any mortal.

Despite the erratic nature of the finished product, the evening’s performance didn’t stint on insights. For instance, the low woodwinds during the beginning of the “Requiem aeternam” evinced a sweet, almost bluesy tone. Meantime, the “Kyrie eleison” offered spitting, Handelian melismas and furious energy.

In the Dies irae Sequence, the music’s play of contrasts stood out for its sheer originality. The fluent alternation of solo, solo ensemble, and choral numbers recalled in compressed form Mozart’s adroit management of scenes and characters in his various mature operas. And the pleading injunctions to be “call[ed] among the blessed” in the “Confutatis” rang with haunting beauty—as theatrically effective as it was dramatically appropriate.

How much of the Requiem’s second half came from Mozart’s pen remains an open question. Nevertheless, Friday’s rendition offered snapping fugues—especially the recurring “Hosanna in excelsis”—and, in the “Hostias” and “Agnus Dei,” no shortage of warm direction.

Throughout, the H&H Chorus, which was prepared by Cohen, was in fine fettle, singing with textural clarity, excellent diction, rich tonal blend, and a total command of the high Viennese Classical style. Sometimes more than that: their open fifths and octaves at the ends of the “Kyrie” and the “Lux aeterna” rang with neo-Medieval splendor.

Among the night’s soloists, soprano Lucy Crowe’s floating, pure account of the “Lux aeterna” and mezzo-soprano Beth Taylor’s resonant contributions in the “Tuba mirum” stood out. Tenor Duke Kim’s sweet, Italianate offerings in the last also impressed, though bass-baritone Brandon Cedel often sounded as though he were singing through gritted teeth. Regardless, the collective’s ensemble work in the “Recordare” was well-balanced and flowing.

Prefacing Mozart’s famous Requiem was a largely unknown one by Michael Haydn. The younger brother of Franz Josef, he penned his Mass for the funeral of the Salzburg Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach in 1772.

Clearly the product of a court composer with a lot on his plate, Haydn’s musically straightforward setting is efficient and instrumentally idiomatic, largely eschewing florid counterpoint and text painting to convey the wordy liturgy in a brisk thirty-five or so minutes. Evidently, the 15-year-old Mozart served in the orchestra during its premiere.

Friday’s rendition captured the Requiem’s broad strokes and fleeting subtleties well. The Introit’s walking bass, the “Kyrie’s” gently pungent suspensions, the depictions of the final trumpet echoing off “earth’s sepulchers” during the “Tuba mirum,” the “Benedictus’s” delicate instrumental accompaniments, and the discreet scalar illustration of the prayer “may eternal light shine on them”—all of these, and more, spoke impressively.

Again, Cohen’s tempos were judicious, balances precise. The chorus and orchestra were in their element and the vocal quartet sang strongly. In the Haydn, too, tenor Kim and bass-baritone Cedel imbued their solos in the “Benedictus” with velvet.

By the end of it, the music’s overriding affect—Haydn’s is a surprisingly robust Missa pro defunctis—even provided something of an encouraging tenet to help keep this mortality-focused opening night from collapsing into sheer pathos: death comes for all of us, it’s true. But life goes on.

The program will be repeated 3 p.m. Sunday at Symphony Hall. handelandhaydn.org

Posted in Performances

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