I have not listened to Mozart’s Requiem in full for over a decade. It is an oddly morbid thing to have surfaced randomly… or perhaps it’s just on my shuffled playlist?
As it is wont to do, the internets is full of opinions on which is the most “definitive” version. I can’t fathom sitting down and researching, note for note, the different character and performance caliber of modern interpretations from Marriner to Karajan to Celibidache to Herrewghe, while faced with something so categorically assigned to call out a range of emotional instead of analytical reflexes. There is the requisite loss, anguish, march, and lamentation. But I’d argue it has sublimity sprinkled everywhere, as well.
One of my favorite sections is Benedictus. “Crowd pleaser” being a somewhat inappropriate term here, it may be the next best thing to having flights of angels sing you to your rest.