Mozart: Requiem; Mass in C Minor

Mozart’s Requiem is a much-recorded work, but Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s live recording from 2025 makes a distinctly fresh and stimulating impression. Often spare and intimate in approach, his interpretation is also cuttingly incisive when needed—the slashing string accents introducing the “Rex tremendae” are a good example. The RIAS Kammerchor brings a wide range of nuance to the choral writing, interlacing with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe’s articulate, clear-textured playing. The result is an unusually sharp delineation of the emotional journey travelled in Mozart’s final, death-haunted composition. The same team of performers adds Mozart’s “Great” Mass in C minor as a coupling. Here the female soloists come into their own, soprano Ying Fang showing delectable fluidity in the ornate “Et incarnatus est,” and mezzo Emily D’Angelo delivering an agile, tonally robust “Laudamus te.” Nézet-Séguin, a seasoned Mozartian, again draws alert, insightful contributions from both choir and orchestra.