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The KPAC Blog features classical music news, reviews, and analysis from South Texas and around the world.

Dark, Energetic, Uplifting: The San Antonio Symphony Plays Mozart's Requiem

The San Antonio Symphony’s Strauss Festival continues this Friday and Saturday, and Music Director Sebastian Lang-Lessing has high words of praise for the Symphony’s next target: Mozart's "Requiem," which is paired with Richard Strauss's "Death and Transfiguration." 

“It is extraordinary and gifted, a dark, extremely beautiful color," Lang-Lessing says of Mozart's work. "And now you would say ‘Oh, it’s a depressing piece.’ I find it the most uplifting requiem ever written. It gives so much hope. There is nothing bitter in this piece. Nothing.”

The Symphony combines forces with the San Antonio Mastersingers. Here’s Chancey Blackburn.

“I would say that as a vocal performance, this is the most difficult thing a chorus or choir could attempt to do.”

What’s so difficult?

“There are 14 different pieces and the range of the pieces is tremendous. Extremely solemn to beautifully melodic and spiritual, incredibly energetic and quick-paced.”.

They’re performing "Requiem" at the Tobin over this Friday and Saturday night.

“All I can say is that the audience is in for a major treat.”

We have more here and here.

Jack Morgan can be reached at jack@tpr.org and on Twitter at @JackMorganii