MLADEN TARBUK, Conductor

 

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem in D minor, KV 626

 

"A composer who writes a requiem for himself while dying – that is a story worthy of a Hollywood film,” Maestro Mladen Tarbuk wrote.

"The story was conceived and made public by the composer's widow, in an attempt to somehow secure the means for a decent living and raising their offspring. And such were the times; on the turn of the 19th century, art was transforming from a craft of beauty into a divine activity that could be performed on earth only by individuals touched by the wing of an angel, so Mozart became one of the first proclaimed geniuses in the field of music. 

The Requiem remained unfinished. Mozart's draft of the score was amended by his pupil Joseph Leopold Eybler. At Konstanze's urging, the Requiem was completed by another pupil, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, and it is in that form that the Requiem has been performed from the 19th century to the present day.

For this occasion, I have decided to amend the form of the Requiem myself by composing Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and Lux aeterna, not trying to imagine how Mozart would have composed these movements had he lived longer, but by providing my own contemporary commentary on this magnificent torso, which, despite its circumstances, has become one of the most important artifacts of our civilization,” Maestro Tarbuk concluded.