Presented as part of the LA Phil’s Rituals festival, curated by Creative DirectorEsa-Pekka Salonen, this pairing of requiems brings us face to face with questions of faith, humanity, and mortality.
Mozart’s Requiem owes some of its timeless staying power to the composer’s death prior to its completion. It unfolds as a sacred rite suspended between fear and hope. From its booming Dies irae to its heart wrenching Lacrimosa, the unfinished mass is a powerful yet gentle statement on salvation and eternal rest.
György Ligeti’s Requiem, in the composer’s words, is “hysterical, hyperdramatic, and unrestrained.” When Salonen led the Los Angeles Philharmonic in its first performance of the work in 1998, The New York Times wrote that it felt like a “physical evocation of cold sweat.” Striking, substantial, and, sopping with terror, the music “bears the imprint of a long time spent in the shadow of death” Ligeti says. Sci-fi film fans might recognize its unsettling murmurs and sounds of cosmic dread from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
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