Santa Fe Pro Musica to perform Mozart's 'Requiem'

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s “Requiem” is a choral masterpiece whose genesis is shrouded in mystery.

The composer was not in the best state of body or mind when he received an anonymous commission to compose a requiem Mass. Despite rumors of poisoning fueled by the 1984 movie “Amadeus,” today experts believe he died of a strep infection then sweeping across Vienna. He died in 1791 before finishing his choral masterpiece. Portions of it were performed five days after his death.

Santa Fe Pro Musica to perform Mozart's 'Requiem'

“He did have premonitions of death,” said Thomas O’Connor, Santa Fe Pro Musica conductor laureate. “I think he imagined he was writing the ‘Requiem’ for himself.

“The piece was recognized right away as an incredible masterpiece,” he added.

O’Connor will lead the Santa Fe Pro Musica orchestra, Polyphony: Voices of New Mexico and four soloists through the composer’s final triumph on Saturday, April 27, and Sunday, April 28, at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

The musicians will perform a version of the “Requiem” completed by Harvard University musicologist Robert Levin.

“He’s one of the world authorities on Mozart’s compositional technique,” O’Connor said. “His goal was to do as little as possible.”

The piece consists of five-minute sections comprised of 14 movements.

“They are extremely compatible,” O’Connor said. “They’re all in the three-to-four minute range. The text is reflected in the music.

“He starts with very simple themes,” he continued. “They’re not long; they don’t move around a lot. There’s an integrity to the thematic development. That is a hallmark of the greatest composers.”

The choral work opens with four vocal lines supplemented by organ and bass notes.

Its clarity may have been influenced by the Emperor Franz Joseph, who declared that church music had become too flashy and needed to be simplified.

“The soloists are very well-known, particularly in the period instrument movement,” O’Connor said.

The singers include soprano Sherezade Panthaki, originally from India, who taught at the Yale School of Music. Alto Meg Bragle is artist-in-residence at the University of Pennsylvania. Tenor Thomas Cooley is in demand as an interpreter of J.S. Bach and George Frideric Handel. Bass-baritone Douglas Williams has performed with the Berlin and Munich philharmonics, in France, at the Dutch National Opera and the Salzburg Mozarteum, as well as symphonies and orchestras in Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit, Houston and Washington, D.C.

The concert will open with Anna Clyne’s “Within Her Arms,” a tribute to her late mother.

O’Connor is the co-founder, interim executive director and former principal oboist of Santa Fe Pro Musica.