Mozart - Requiem; Paisiello - Messe pour le sacre de Napoleon
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Label: Alpha
Cat No: ALPHA919
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 1
Genre: Vocal/Choral
Release Date: 10th March 2023
Contents
Artists
Sandrine Piau (soprano)Chantal Santon Jeffery (soprano)
Eleonore Pancrazi (mezzo-soprano)
Mathias Vidal (tenor)
Thomas Dolie (baritone)
Choeur de Chambre de Namur
Le Concert de la Loge
Conductor
Julien ChauvinWorks
Requiem in D minor, K626Messe pour le sacre de Napoleon
Artists
Sandrine Piau (soprano)Chantal Santon Jeffery (soprano)
Eleonore Pancrazi (mezzo-soprano)
Mathias Vidal (tenor)
Thomas Dolie (baritone)
Choeur de Chambre de Namur
Le Concert de la Loge
Conductor
Julien ChauvinAbout
Mozart’s Requiem was not performed in Paris until 1804, in a version slightly different from the composer’s original score. The press reported a triumph. That same year also saw the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte – who had brought back a pronounced taste for Italian music from his Mediterranean conquests. He appointed the Neapolitan Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816) as his maître de chapelle and commissioned him to write the music for his coronation: a Solemn Mass in B flat major. The Palazzetto Bru Zane has produced the modern edition of the work that is recorded here. Aside from the sumptuous events of 1804, the other year that links Napoleon to Mozart is 1841, when the Requiem was heard once more, this time at Les Invalides as Napoleon’s remains entered the building for their final burial. Sandrine Piau, Chantal Santon Jeffery, Eléonore Pancrazi, Mathias Vidal and Thomas Dolié are the soloists in this programme, with Julien Chauvin conducting his ensemble Le Concert de la Loge and the Namur Chamber Choir.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Jommelli: Introït
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2Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 1. Requiem
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3Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 2. Dies irae
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4Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 3. Tuba mirum
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5Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 4. Rex tremendae
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6Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 5. Recordare
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7Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 6. Confutatis
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8Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 7. Lacrimosa
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9Mozart: Requiem, K626 (Paris version, 1804): 8. Cum Sanctis tuis
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10Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 1. Kyrie
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11Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 2. Gloria
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12Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 3. Laudamus te
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13Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 4. Gratias agimus tibi
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14Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 5. Domine Deus
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15Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 6. Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris
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16Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 7. Quoniam to solus sanctus
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17Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 8. Cum Sancto Spiritu
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18Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 9. Credo
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19Bochsa: Prélude pour harpe
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20Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 10. Et incarnatus est
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21Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 11. Et in Spiritum Sanctum
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22Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 12. Sanctus
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23Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 13. Agnus Dei
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24Paisiello: Messe pour le sacre de Napoléon: 14. Domine salvum fac imperatorem
Europadisc Review
Here’s a recording of Mozart’s Requiem unlike any other you will have heard. Performed by the Namur Chamber Choir and Le Concert de la Loge with an impressive team of soloists under the direction of Julien Chauvin, it presents the work as it was given at its Paris premiere on 21 December 1804 conducted by Luigi Cherubini – just over thirteen years after Mozart’s death, and a good decade after the Requiem’s first performances.
What the Parisian audience of 1804 heard was a severely truncated version of the piece: after the ‘Lacrimosa’ (already known to have been the last section Mozart worked on), the music cuts to the concluding ‘Cum Sanctis tuis’. And, as the latter presents essentially the same fugue that featured in the work’s second section, ‘Kyrie eleison’, the Kyrie is accordingly cut, so that opening Introit ‘Requiem aeternam’ segues straight into the Sequence ‘Dies irae’. Furthermore, Mozart’s own Introit is preceded by the opening ‘Requiem aeternam’ from Niccolò Jommelli’s Requiem – enormously popular at the time, its warm, comforting tone very different from the austere music it precedes here.
Before you come out immediately against the resulting torso (at 24 minutes, it is half the length of the various completed versions we’re used to), be assured that there is much else here to sustain interest. The Parisian orchestra lacked the basset horns specified in the score, so their parts were adapted for two cors anglais. Among other more ear-catching differences, the ‘Dies irae’ starts with a striking held D minor chord from the orchestra before the choir makes its dramatic entrance. More arresting still, the opening trombone solo of the ‘Tuba mirum’ was thought insufficiently solemn, and so it is played in unison by the entire brass section – a spine-tingling moment! – and the following trombone solo against the bass voice is taken instead by a distinctively French-sounding bassoon.
Chauvin and his forces make the best possible case for this Mozart Requiem à la parisienne. Their use of French Latin pronunciation gives the work a decidedly Gallic flavour: for example, in the opening ‘Requiem’ movement the second word of the phrase ‘et lux perpetua’ – normally sounding like the English word ‘looks’ – has its vowel extended to sound more like ‘Luke’s’. And, in the ‘Dies irae’, the words ‘cuncta stricte’ sound more like ‘concta stricte’. The ear takes less time to adjust to such details than you might suppose, and the result contributes to a performance of great elegance, as does the top-drawer team of soloists, headed by sopranos Sandrine Piau and Chantal Santon Jeffery. Mathias Vidal’s somewhat tremulous tenor might divide opinion (although he always sings intelligently), but baritone Thomas Dolié is a commanding presence, and the light-toned mezzo-soprano of Éléonore Pancrazi completes the distinguished line-up.
In the warm surroundings of the Arsenal de Metz, the Namur Chamber Choir makes a highly sympathetic sound, well-defined and with beautiful phrasing. There’s no loss of impact or sense of line, for example, in the ‘Rex tremendae’ at Chauvin’s urgently-paced, lightly-sprung tempo.
Cherubini’s performance of Mozart’s Requiem was originally supposed to take place in late November, but was delayed to make forces available for an even more important event: Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation as French emperor on 2 December. For the occasion, Napoleon’s Neapolitan maître de chapelle Giovanni Paisiello composed a coronation Mass and Te Deum, the former being presented here on disc for the first time in an edition prepared by the ever-enterprising Palazzetto Bru Zane. Anyone expecting high pomp and loud volume to match the grandeur of Jacques-Louis David’s famous painting of the coronation should think again. Although originally performed by a vast choir and orchestra (the forces here are rather fewer), this is a work of immense charm and elegance, with bubbling woodwind and some agile instrumental and vocal solos.
It’s a tribute to Paisiello’s craftsmanship that his work, combining French refinement with Italianate flair, stands up so well in the company of some of Mozart’s greatest music. Among the more delightful touches are the duetting oboes against the tenor solo in the ‘Gratias agimus tibi’; the pointillistic choral setting of the words ‘qui tol-lis pec-ca-ta’ in the ‘Domine Deus’; and – after a lovely harp Prélude by Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (dreamily played by Sandrine Chatron) – a meltingly gorgeous setting of ‘Et incarnatus est’ for soprano with obbligato harp and horn (the latter expertly dispatched by Nicolas Chedmail).
The majesty of the full orchestra is effectively postponed until the concluding ‘Domine salvum fac imperatorem’, with bass solo and choir joining in to round off a thoroughly engaging work which, like the disc as a whole, is of far more than mere curiosity interest. While obviously not the only Mozart Requiem you’ll want in your collection, the ‘Paris version’ of 1804 is of huge interest, and the Paisiello makes an enchanting coupling. Excellent (although concise) booklet notes by Alexandre Dratwicki and a first-class recording from the Alpha team complete this highly attractive package.
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