There are, I believe, more recordings of the Mozart Requiem in the catalogue than of any other major sacred work; but there is always room at (or near) the top, and this one certainly qualifies. For a start, it was made in Salzburg Cathedral last summer, and enshrines a performance given in memory of Herbert von Karajan to mark the 10th anniversary of his death. The occasion, the setting and of course the conductor, have produced a powerful and eloquent performance, not quite in Karajan's own vein, but surely one he would have admired, particularly for its lyricism.
Salzburg Cathedral is a huge, cavernous and reverberant building, but the engineers seem to have done a remarkable job in producing a sound that is quite exceptionally lucid and sharply defined in spite of the aura of resonance. The Swedish Radio Choir has no surplus fat to its voices: it's a clear, lean sound, aided by very precise articulation - the semiquaver runs in the Kyrie seem almost staccato. The orchestral textures are very transparent, too, and one can hear in the 'Recordare' how neatly phrased and functionally shaped are the accompanying lines in the lower strings.
Claudio Abbado is no less attentive to the melodic lines, which are strongly shaped, or to the rhythms, which have great breadth and vigour, especially in the big, grand choruses of the Sequence (the 'Dies irae' is quite alarming: which I suppose is as it should be) - and the large-scale fugues (the Kyrie, the 'Quam olim Abrahae') are powerfully done while the more relaxed music of the Offertorium moves at a good pace. A particular highlight is the Benedictus, sung with a passion and an expressive warmth that make it harder than ever to believe that this could be wholly Sussmayr's work, as the booklet asserts. The soloists are happily chosen: a contralto and tenor rather slender and focused in tone, with Bryn Terfel supplying a strong and well-defined bottom line (occasionally it is over-prominent) and Karita Mattila singing the soprano with much richness and poetry - her entry in the 'Tuba mirum' is a moment to treasure, and in the 'Recordare' and the Benedictus, too, she sounds a note of warmth and humanity that I found very moving.
In general, the performance follows the Sussmayr text, but in the later movements some of Franz Beyer's modifications and quite a few of Robert Levin's much heavier revisions have been included. This, I have to say - much as I admire Levin and his work - I regret: the first 'Osanna' seems to me banal in parts, and the link to the second I find clumsy and unMozartian, while some of the rewriting (in the Agnus especially) appears arbitrary and hard to justify (if this is Sussmayr's music, he should be allowed his say, and if it's Mozart's, it should be left well alone).
That issue apart, I would happily recommend this disc to anyone wanting a modern version of the Requiem; I personally find Sir Colin Davis's 1967 recording and Marriner's of 1990 rather more sympathetic, but this one does preserve a historic occasion and what in many respects is a very fine, dedicated performance. It also includes two appropriate extras which receive warm, finely poised performances from Rachel Harnisch.
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