Mozart from Brazil

The Centre International des Chemins du Baroque at Sarrebourg (Moselle, France), which specialises in research into the musical heritage of Latin America, has discovered a score of a conclusion of Mozart's Requiem in Brazil, in the archives of the former cathedral of Rio de Janeiro.

Until now it was generally accepted that the Requiem, left unfinished by Mozart, had been principally completed by one of his pupils, Franz Xavier Süssmayr, who wrote the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei and completed important instrumental parts in the other movements. For the ending of the work, Süssmayr provided only a reprise of the music from the opening Kyrie, ignoring the text of the Libera me.

But an alternative conclusion exists, and it was written by a pupil of Michael Haydn in Salzburg, the Austrian composer Sigismund Neukomm (1778-1858). Neukomm, a valued collaborator of Joseph Haydn and an untiring traveller, journeyed to Rio de Janeiro in 1816, where he met Father José Mauricio Nunes Garcia (1767-1830) (mestre de capela to Emperor João VI), who asked Neukomm to write a Libera me to conclude the first performance of Mozart's Requiem in the New World (conducted by Nunes Garcia on 19 December 1819 at the Church of the Brotherhood of St Cecilia in Rio de Janeiro). Neukomm put his final touches to the score on 24 January 1821, according to the recovered manuscript.

The Centre International des Chemins du Baroque and French record company K617 have produced a recording of the Requiem (K617180) with this newly discovered ending. Jean-Claude Malgoire conducts Le Choeur Kantorei de Saarlouis and La Grande Écurie et la Chambre du Roy.

Information: www.cd-baroque.com

Posted: 16 January 2006

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