Mozart: Requiem, K. 626 (Süssmayr / Dutron 2016 Completion)

What makes this recording of Mozart’s Requiem memorable is the use of the completion by the French composer Pierre-Henri Dutron. He takes the commonly heard edition by Franz Xaver Süssmayr as a starting point and works from there—the result is not as radical as you might expect, but it has the huge advantage of tidying up and adding some imaginative touches to some of Süssmayr’s more earthbound solutions. It emphasizes the human scale of the work and relieves it of some of its grandeur, and René Jacobs conducts his superb musicians with burning conviction.