Soprano: Lucy Martin
Alto: Marian Dijkhuizen
Tenor: Charles Daniels
Bass-baritone: Harry van der Kamp
Choir: Gesualdo Consort Amsterdam
Orchestra: Cristofori
Concertmaster: Corrado Bolsi
Conductor: Arthur Schoonderwoerd

Date: 29-31 May 2017
Venue: Église Notre-Dame de Besançon, France

Label: Accent
Cat No.: ACC 24338
Released: 2018

Most recordings of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor are based on the completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr, which has become the standard performing version, though some of these offer minor modifications of the orchestration and alterations of Süssmayr’s awkward counterpoint. Yet as far as historically informed reassessments of the Requiem are concerned, perhaps only Arthur Schoonderwoerd’s performance with the Gesualdo Consort and Cristofori on the Accent label is an attempt to re-create the experience of a funeral mass in Vienna in the 1790s. This version presents Mozart’s score in Süssmayr’s completion, with touchups by Joseph Leopold Eybler, Johann Jacob Freystädtler, and Maximilian Stadler, while the Epistle, the Gospel, the Preface, the Absolution, and the final Requiescant in pace are sung in Gregorian chant. Additions to the Requiem are Schoonderwoerd’s own completion of the Amen fugue that closes the Sequence, and the Libera me by Ignaz Ritter von Seyfried, a composition that was intended as an addendum to the Requiem and performed at Beethoven’s funeral. Regarded from a scholarly perspective, this is an impressive achievement, yet the performance itself is a little underwhelming. Only eight singers comprise the choir and barely hold their own against the small orchestra, so the louder sections, such as the Kyrie, Dies Irae, and Sanctus, are subdued and disappointing for their thin choral texture. The instruments are played according to 18th century practice, and the trumpets and timpani are consistently paired, as Mozart would have intended, yet the effect of the performance is rather like a chamber music reduction, as might be expected in a chapel rather than a large cathedral. Listeners who like to study the Requiem and its various revisions will be fascinated by Schoonderwoerd’s thoroughgoing efforts, but others who prefer a more powerful and thrilling performance may demur.
— Blair Sanderson in allmusic.com