Mozart Requiem – Sheffield

Jean-Claude Picard is a young conductor praised for the intensity and flair of his performances. Tonight he directs the Manchester Camerata and Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus in Mozart&s great Requiem. Unfinished at the composer’s death, it was completed by a star pupil; its origins are somewhat shrouded in mystery and intrigue. But whatever those origins really were, it remains a profound musical experience for audiences and performers alike.

The lighter side of Mozart is in evidence in his beautifully buoyant ‘Linz Symphony’. He wrote it in just a few days while passing through the Austrian city of its title. The concert opens with Arvo Pärt’s Da Pacem Domine for strings, based on his great choral prayer for peace, a work of serenity and quite astonishing beauty.