Radio 3 Record Review
13th May 2023
Record of the Week

Rachel Redmond (soprano), Marianne Beate Kielland (mezzo-soprano), Mingjie Lei (tenor), Manuel Walser (bass), Le Concert Des Nations, La Cappela Nacional de Catalunya, Jordi Savall

Tradition und Vision, young and old, show and intimacy. This year’s Mozart Week in Salzburg offered the Requiem in two performances which couldn’t diverge more from each other, even though they are based on the same score. First, the 81-year-old Savall conducted with his chamber ensemble Le Concert des Nations and chorus La Capella Nacional de Catalunya a version vividly depicting the horrors of death ; 4 days later, the 30-year-old Thomas Guggeis – replacing Daniel Barenboim – delivered with an abundantly-staffed Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Wiener Singverein a traditional obliging reading……… Savall succeeded in delivering a much more convincing and direct performance ….. Jordi Savall had a clear advantage regarding the concert location and the ensemble. And while traditional conductors perform this music with Bruckner and Wagner in mind, Jordi Savall intimately knows the history preceding Mozart. It dramatically changes the perspective ….. Jordi Savall has played everything of the gambe and ensemble music from the Middle-Ages to Mozart (and recently Beethoven and Franz Schubert). Among which much religious music, that Savall colors with a Spanish Catholicism full of dark pathos and menacing death….. Savall, as a musician and consummate scholar is a man of the Enlightenment and succeeds in reviving the original religious intention and effect of this Mass for the Dead.