How do you ensure that one of the most ominous, yet beautiful compositions of all time carries the gravitas and all the cultural weight behind it to the ears of the audience? 

You make like Nick Fury from the Marvel Universal and assemble a team—not of earth’s greatest heroes, but—of many of earth’s greatest musicians. 

Start with the foundation. The Philidelphia Orchestra is in peak form and still arguably the best it has  sounded through all its years of awards and recordings. 

Then you bring in a conductor who specializes in this piece. Natalie Stutzmann, current music director of the Atlanta Symphony and France’s darling (she was awarded the country’s highest honorary title for her contribution to the arts, Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur). 

Next, hand pick experienced soloists at the top of the craft: Erin Morley from the Metropolitan Opera Lindeman’s Young Artist Development Program filled the role of coloratura soprano; Grammy award-winning true alto Sara Mingardo and tenor Kenneth Tarver; then true bass Harold Wilson of Deutsche Opera Berlin fame. 

Place all of these in the Verizon Hall (soon to be Marian Anderson Hall) with its fantastic acoustics, with an appetizer of the revised version Schumann’s 4th symphony (a brooding piece written after his marriage and revisited at their tenth anniversary) and open the hall doors. 

If you are not familiar with the background of this piece, the program notes’ summary shares just a bit of the drama surrounding its creation. 

“Mozart’s Requiem is shrouded in mystery; left uncompleted at the end of his life amid the torments of illness and financial woes, it is imbued with Mozart’s own dark thoughts that the commissioning of a requiem, while a boon to his spare funds, was somehow a sign that his own life was in danger. Myths swirl around the “mysterious stranger” who ordered the piece, including one theory that the commissioner was Mozart’s jealous contemporary and competitor Antonio Salieri, as depicted in the play and film Amadeus. History shows that it was more likely that the dubious figure was a nobleman in the habit of acquiring works by gifted composers and passing them off as his own. 

“In a creative frenzy, pouring out his genius in an attempt to improve his fortunes, Mozart was more productive in his final year than in any other period in his life. His Requiem’s “Dies irae” (Day of Wrath) blazes with theatricality, and his ineffably sorrowful “Lacrimosa” remains one of the most beautiful passages in all of classical music.”

Tonight’s performance felt special. From the first note, there was a charged urgency in the room. It was a similar feeling to that moment when you are watching a thunderhead roll across the plains and it gets close enough that you feel electricity in the air and head for cover to watch the fireworks of heaven crash to the ground all around you. The string section, particularly the cellos, really leaned into the pieces emotionally this evening while retaining their signature trait of absolute precision. 

At intermission, the choir filled in the seats above the orchestra for the Requiem. I loved the pacing Nathalie Stutzmann  brought to the piece. At times it bounced with a sense of purpose, while other sections dragged like the condemned on the way to the gallows. A common mistake with this piece is to treat the entire composition with the same tone and flavor. 

This is the first time I feel the orchestra has performed at their full potential without Yannick at the baton. She demanded depth of feeling and commanded respect not out of courtesy but through her presence from the musicians. I do hope she visits more often. 

The timpani player, Don S. Liuzzi, carried a lot of the emotional weight of today’s performance and his performance deserves to be recognized for his deft touch and commanding rumble throughout the night. 

Whether Mozart wrote most of the piece or not, this performance demonstrated it from a mind which knew trauma and torment. That pain begot joy for us this evening transporting us into a storm of clashing motifs, emotions, and frenzy among mesmerizing harmonic progressions. We

Perhaps Mozart’s plea from the third movement summarizes best his feelings at the time he put this to paper: “Remember, Good Jesus, that I am the cause of Thy problems. LaJourney, do not abandon me on that day. 

The Philadelphia Orchestra is the only orchestra in the world with three weekly broadcast on SiriusXM Symphony Hall, channel 76, on   Mondays at 7 PM, Thursdays at 12 AM, and Saturdays at 4 PM. They also broadcast concerts each Sunday at 1 PM on WRTI.org. If you cannot make it in person, tune in online for a taste of the majesty until you can attend in person. 

To learn more about the Philadelphia Orchestra’s upcoming performances, visit them online.

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