I’m performing Mozart’s Requiem with Collegium Musicum this month. The first time I performed it was with Mack Wilberg as conductor, in the historic Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Though my religious inclinations have changed since then (to say the least), I still do I enjoy coming back to the Requiem, and getting together with musical people for the purpose of making some great music. This is the smallest group I’ve ever sung it with — only twelve of us! Usually it’s one or two hundred singers. I’ll have to be more precise than usual.

There has been a bit of controversy over which pronunciation to use. We’re using German Latin (instead of Roman Latin) because it was first performed in St. Michael’s Church in Vienna. German pronunciation of Latin involves some differences over Roman Latin:

  • ‘qu’ -> [kv], so ‘requiem’ would be pronounced [rekviɛm]
  • initial and intervocalic ‘s’ -> [z], so ‘supplex’ is realised as [zuplɛx]
  • initial and intervocalic ‘c’ -> [ts], so ‘cinis’ is pronounced [tsinis]

and many more.

The controversy is this: did they use Roman or German Latin in St. Michael’s in 1793? They were German, after all, and so the case for German Latin seems reasonable. Unless — and here’s the rub — unless they were aiming for a faithful Roman pronunciation, which they might have been, given that Vienna was a major city and St. Michael’s would therefore have been ‘high church’.

The debate rages. I’ll keep you posted.