Mannheim-trained Georg Joseph Vogler had great personality as a composer, though he’s best known today as the teacher of Weber and Meyerbeer. His Requiem was composed around 1808; he hoped it would be performed at Haydn’s funeral a year later, but apparently the piece was not heard in the composer’s lifetime (he died in 1814). It’s full of interesting ideas, from the brass fanfares throughout the Dies Irae sequence, to an a cappella vocal movement (well sung by the four soloists), to a truly luminous choral setting of the Lux aeterna. The entire work lasts about an hour in this performance and it surely deserves a place in the collection of most choral music enthusiasts. As a change of pace from yet another performance of Mozart’s Requiem, this would be most welcome, and the score is readily available in the Denkmäler der Tonkunst in Bayern series.
As suggested above, the performances are generally very good. The soloists work well as a group, and only bass Wolf Matthias Friedrich sounds a bit wobbly now and then (and light of timbre). The Orpheus Choir sings ably, and conductor Gerd Guglhör, aided by an ample acoustic, plays up the brass and timpani theatrics at the big moments quite effectively. In the Haydn, his dynamic manipulations in forte episodes border on mannerism but don’t ever cross over the line, but the “authentic” strings sound predictably thin, a problem that might have been remedied had there simply been more of them. A small disappointment, then, in what otherwise is a wholly recommendable release.
