# Requiem Completions -- Favorites? No so favorites?



## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Just picked up a new CD, Dutron's completion of Mozart's Requiem conducted by Jacobs. I like everything about it, and would call it the best _among those completions that have added new material_, though I don't think Dutron's rewrite of the Sanctus improves on Sußmayr's. I think Dutron's completion/rewrite of the Lacrimosa is the finest I know of. I have two recordings of Levin's rewrite. I think he's the most Mozartian (probably the most knowledgeable of any in his field as to composing "in the style" of Mozart). Here's a Youtube video of five Amen completions. I personally find Levin's to be the most Mozartian, even retaining the elevated tone of the Requiem.






The Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs completion strikes me as too operatic for a church fugue (given Mozart's other examples). Maunder and Druce tend to slacken and meander. The Tamas, version, to my taste, sounds too much like a student work taken from the baroque.

And here's a list of modern completions:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_completions_of_Mozart's_Requiem

And here's a completion done by a composer, Sigismund Neukomm, born in Mozart's lifetime:






And another from Ignaz von Seyfried for Beethoven's funeral (roughly same years as Neukomm)






My favorites, representing three kinds of approaches (I think):


Harnoncourt's Requiem (with minimal tweaks to Sußmayr's score)
Pearlman's Requiem (completion by Levin with original material on original instruments)
Jacobs' Requiem (extensive addition and original material)


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> I personally find Levin's to be the most Mozartian, even retaining the elevated tone of the Requiem.


I say Amen to this.
Considering the way Misericordias Domini in D Minor K. 222 (1775) develops (the 'A-B-C-D-E' in the soprano) resembles Levin's completion of Amen.

[ 3:28 ]










[ 23:04 ]


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I certainly think Jacob's recording is one of the very best and one that gives you less of a sense of a falling off of greatness when you move into the completed parts.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I say Amen to this.
> Considering the way Misericordias Domini in D Minor K. 222 (1775) develops (the 'A-B-C-D-E' in the soprano) resembles Levin's completion of Amen....


Thanks. Listened again to Levin's cleaning up of the Sanctus. Everybody complains about the voice leading and part writing in the Sanctus but it really is beautiful. I mean, it's so far above and beyond anything else that Sußmayr wrote that there has to be some of Mozart's intentions in there. What's fascinating is that I once read that the Sanctus is actually based on a very common musical idea that Mozart used to give his students as exercises. Could it be that the Sanctus was the result of an exercise given to and guided by Mozart prior to or concomitant with the Requiem?


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

vtpoet if I may, I give you a suggestion.
Go to the main board, use advance search and type: 

Mozart requiem
Lots of topic about Mozart Requiem.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

Rogerx said:


> vtpoet if I may, I give you a suggestion.
> Go to the main board, use advance search and type:
> 
> Mozart requiem
> Lots of topic about Mozart Requiem.


Yeah, I tried that. Either the search algorithm isn't too hot or I used the wrong search terms. All kinds of stuff came up but nothing directly related to my post. Not saying it's not out there, but I checked first.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

vtpoet said:


> Yeah, I tried that. Either the search algorithm isn't too hot or I used the wrong search terms. All kinds of stuff came up but nothing directly related to my post. Not saying it's not out there, but I checked first.


Here is one for starters:
https://www.talkclassical.com/47664-what-your-favourite-mozart.html?highlight=MOzart+requiem


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