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Requiem pour L. album cover

Album guide

Requiem pour L.

Fabrizio Cassol

Composer
Mozart
Released
2018
Label
Outhere Music
Forces
Vocal, Accordion, Guitar, Percussion
Personnel
Rodriguez Vangama musical director, guitar and electric bass; singers Boule Mpanya, Fredy Massamba and Russell Tshiebua, with Nobulumko Mngxekeza soprano, Owen Metsileng tenor and Stephen Diaz countertenor; João Barradas accordion, Kojack Kossakamvwe electric guitar, Niels Van Heertum euphonium, Michel Seba percussion

Requiem pour L. was created with theatre-maker Alain Platel and named for L., a woman who allowed Platel to film the final stage of her life. Her presence placed the physical reality of dying at the centre of the project, prompting Cassol and Platel to imagine a ceremony of mourning that belonged neither wholly to the Western requiem tradition nor to any one African tradition.

Fourteen musicians from several continents reconstruct Mozart’s unfinished score through jazz, opera, Congolese voices and instruments including accordion, euphonium and likembe. Cassol breaks the massed choir into individual voices and treats the gaps in the Requiem as room for composition, turning a familiar memorial into something more intimate and unsettled.

Hear both

The classical side contains only the source pieces used on the album, in album order. The jazz side presents the complete album whenever a dependable copy can be embedded.

The originalsMozart · classical source works

The classical player uses recordings of Mozart’s Requiem in Süssmayr’s completion across the first eighteen tracks: the Introitus serves tracks 1 and 2, the Dies irae tracks 4 and 5, the Tuba mirum tracks 6 and 7, the Confutatis tracks 10 to 12, and the Sanctus tracks 16 and 17, with the Benedictus added at track 17; track 19 has no recording because its earlier choral source could not be identified.

Jazzed upFabrizio Cassol · 2018
Open full album in Spotify

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Source works

The album’s complete track listing, with each classical source identified and original compositions marked plainly.

  1. Requiem æternamRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Introitus, ‘Requiem aeternam’
  2. Ad TeRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Introitus, the verse ‘Te decet hymnus’
  3. KyrieRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Kyrie
  4. Dies iræ primumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Dies irae’
  5. Dies iræ secundumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Dies irae’
  6. Tuba mirum primumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Tuba mirum’
  7. Tuba mirum secundumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Tuba mirum’
  8. Rex tremendæRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Rex tremendae’
  9. RecordareRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Recordare’
  10. Confutatis primumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Confutatis’
  11. Confutatis secundumRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Confutatis’
  12. Voca meRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Confutatis’, its line ‘Voca me cum benedictis’
  13. LacrimosaRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sequence, ‘Lacrimosa’
  14. Domine JesuRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Offertory, ‘Domine Jesu’
  15. HostiasRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Offertory, ‘Hostias’
  16. SanctusRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sanctus
  17. Fuga con BenedictusRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Sanctus, its closing Hosanna fugue; Benedictus
  18. Agnus DeiRequiem in D minor, K. 626: Agnus Dei
  19. MiserereUnidentified source