Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Concientus Musicus Wien, Arnold Schoenberg Chor - Mozart - Requiem in D minor, K.626 (2004)

Beethoven called Mozart's Requiem "wild and terrible", and that's what we get in Harnoncourt's new recording. Ominous dread hangs from every note of the dark opening measures, the Rex tremendae and Confutatis are driven with terrifying strength, and the supplications of the Lacrimosa, with their weeping stabbings of the orchestra, are freighted with emotional power. The Tuba mirum duet of bass soloist and trombone has a beauty almost never achieved in other readings. Nor does Harnoncourt overstep the stylistic boundaries of this classical-era work; rather, the intensity is heightened for being in the idiom of its time. Call it a Romantic reading of a Classical piece that looks forward to a more unbuttoned era. The soloists couldn't be better; the orchestra is first-rate, the chorus, sensational, singing with a sense of color, line, and emotion. Harnoncourt uses the Beyer edition of Süssmayr's completion of the work, and Mozart's unfinished original manuscript can be! accessed via a CD-ROM track, which scrolls as the music plays. This release gets my vote as the best Mozart Requiem on disc, all the more impressive for being a live concert performance in excellent sound. -- Dan Davis