In 1780, Mozart made a promise to his beloved fiancé, Constanze. He vowed to write her a grand setting of the Roman Catholic Mass, a gesture of thanksgiving to God that she had recovered from illness and a tribute to her glittering, high soprano voice.
Mozart wasn’t able to keep his promise - he only finished the big movements - but the music he did complete lacks nothing in impact, sincerity and majesty, especially since twentieth-century musicologists have filled in some blanks.
Mozart’s Great C Minor Mass is a meeting of the operatic and the sacred, a journey in music that builds from its stately opening procession into expressions of calm, fury and radiance.
Matthew Halls, Music Director of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland and a specialist in eighteenth century music, conducts this performance of one of Mozart’s rare masterpieces of sacred music alongside stimulating motets by Francis Poulenc and Ørjan Matre’s beguiling concerto for harp, choir and instruments.
Image: Soprano Julie Roset, photo: David Noles