As the preview note said, Mozart's Solemn Vespers don't sound very solemn. It's as if some sense of the word has been lost in translation but I've always thought the Requiem was quite playful, too. He brings light into darkness and often his happiness is tinged with sadness.In this version, the choral sections are punctuated by sinfonias not unlike Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which gave Southern Pro Musica more than just a supporting role to the singers and they did it with clarity and dexterity.
The Laudate Dominum is an obvious pick for any 'Mozart Masterpieces' disc even if it would be a big box-set if it had to include them all. Late stand-in Luci Briginshaw delivered it superbly in all its glow before the climactic Magnificat. On a day when a stand-in tenor was also required, the programme was very fashionably rendered 'fake news' but the Choral Union did well to find Luci and Chris Huggon for repertoire which not everybody might be familiar with.
If Joseph Haydn, for all his tremendous worth, isn't quite Mozart, then Michael Haydn isn't quite Joseph, some might say, which is a shame on the evidence of his spirited Requiem. Although the younger brother, he sounds more 'baroque' than his 'classical' superstar sibling. Perhaps we shouldn't be so surprised at how uplifting and death-defying Christian composers were as they celebrate the better place that not everybody believes in any more. The insistent trumpets, rarely moving away from their emphatic one note riff, signify something glorious. Hugo Herman-Wilson carried forward his fine tone from the Vespers and Eleanor Dann completed an impressive quartet of soloists, however ad hoc they were on the night.
The Requiem's sweeping opening might have something of the Pergolesi Stabat Mater about it and expands into something quite flamboyant with the Choral Union making their customary well-organized, swelling sound.
Portsmouth has more of this sort of thing than it might reasonably expect and I wouldn't want any of those that put in the work to provide it to think there weren't a few of us that appreciate it.
You can find out when and where on this very useful website, https://musicinportsmouth.co.uk/
I'm glad I looked. Rogers Covey-Crump is there tomorrow afternoon so I might have to go back.
