Far too much is made of Mozart having been a freemason, that he was composing a requiem shortly before his death, and that his Clarinet Concerto has a melancholic Adagio. Guest conductor Cristian Mandeal exemplified the best and worst of this sentimentalist approach. But, before that, the Hallé played an impressive short piece that Mozart composed for a masonic funeral in 1785, and Mandeal presented a sustained and more opulent Mozart than we have become used to. The Hallé's three basset horns blended magically with the strings, and implied that Mozart's perspective on death was more dignified than it might seem from conventional views of the Requiem, composed six years later.
Hallé member Lynsey Marsh was an impressive soloist in the Clarinet Concerto. Yet the Hallé was directed to adopt a string tone that was more reminiscent of cucumber sandwiches and chocolate boxes than the vitality and spontaneity it has recently demonstrated. Mandeal edged closer to the ideal of Mozartian perfection in the Adagio, and gave Marsh enough space to show more personality. The final Rondo was best: less polite direction from Mandeal, more flirtatious playing from Marsh, and greater vibrancy from the Hallé. The performance proved that Mozart's Concerto contains a far broader spectrum of emotions than when judged on its famous Adagio alone.
Mandeal's Requiem owed little to Mozart's aesthetics. The Hallé Choir had a magnificently firm blend, and the orchestra sounded lean in all the important moments, but Mandeal's direction was frustrating. Tempos in gentler moments were excellently chosen, but the small details proved marginally too late to propel the music forward. Mandeal's faster movements were exciting, yet always fell into clumsy and overexaggerated slowed final cadences, and his mismanagement of the choir was full of extreme dynamic changes and effects that had little to do with a sensible comprehension of the Latin text. One could marvel at the richness and strength of Mandeal's portentous statements of hellfire, but the overall result had few interesting observations.
