The Valletta Cultural Agency has announced a major Lenten production – Mozart’s Requiem and Masonic Funeral Music – two musical masterpieces which will be held in collaboration with the 40-strong Italian choir of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with the participation of the Malta Philharmonic Orchestra.
A number of international soloists including soprano Hanna Husáhr, mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb, tenor Toby Spence, and bassist Karl Magnus Fredriksson will participate in this production which takes place under the musical direction of Maltese-Dutch conductor Lawrence Renes at St Dominic’s basilica, on April 2 at 8pm, in Valletta.
Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on December 5 of the same year. A completed version of Mozart’s Requiem, dated 1792, by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who commissioned the piece for a requiem service to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's death on February 14. Mozart’s ‘Masonic funeral music’ was composed in 1785. This is a short but extremely poignant work, considered one of Mozart's absolute masterpieces, but rarely performed due to the uniqueness of its original orchestration.
The origins of the multi-secular Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia are closely linked to choral singing and go back to the second half of the 1500s when several chapel-masters and choristers formed an association, electing as President Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, thus founding the accademia.
Besides its recent engagements including tours, the chorus took part in the recording of Madama Butterfly by Puccini, and the Requiem by Verdi (both directed by Antonio Pappano), which received the 2010 BBC Music Magazine Award as best recording (choral section), the 2010 Classical Brits Critics Award and a Gramophone Award.
The Minister for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government, José Herrera, praised this artistic initiative and said that as the minister responsible, he is ensuring that the cultural and artistic sector has a sustainable future. This is especially in light of the fact that the pandemic left a huge impact on this sector.
Valletta Cultural Agency CEO said that initiatives based on international collaboration with European institutions of excellence are a very important part of the agency’s cultural programme, which strives to foster quality and to make it accessible to a wide-ranging audience.
Umberto Nicoletti Altimari, the representative of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia’s artistic direction spoke about the chorus’s eagerness to be working with the VCA and the MPO at such times. This is the first time for the Academia di Santa Cecilia to perform in Valletta, although ties go back to 2016 when the MPO and the Accademia chorus performed together in Rome. Umberto concluded by saying that Mozart’s Requiem is an event not to be missed.
For more information on Mozart’s Requiem and to book your €15/€5 tickets, please visit showshappening.com.