‘Didn’t I tell you that I composed the Requiem for myself?’ Mozart may (or may not) have spoken those words on his death bed, but his choral masterpiece, the Requiem, commissioned by a mysterious cloaked figure, certainly offers a transfiguring experience. Written in the last month of Mozart’s life, it contrasts the fear of death with radiant hope and balances dark drama with sublime simplicity. It’s sung tonight by a cast of rising-star soloists, ed by some of the UK’s most talented young voices, the National Youth Chamber Choir. As a prelude, the concert’s first half includes a short symphony by Mozart’s contemporary Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges – the first composer of African ancestry to make waves in Europe – and a selection of dances, arias and storm-evocations drawn from operas by Jean-Philippe Rameau, the leading music-dramatist of this day.
Image: David Bates © Andy Staples
