The Requiem was Mozart’s last work. It was commissioned in the autumn of 1791 by Count Franz von Walsegg, who wished to pass it off as a composition of his own written in memory of his wife. Unfortunately, Mozart left it unfinished when he died on 5 December, and soon after his widow asked the minor composer Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete it. Süssmayr’s is the version that is most often heard today, though in this radical version Richard Maunder has tried to produce a version closer to Mozart’s late style, rejecting Süssmayr’s inadequate additions and reorchestrating it using Die Zauberflöte and La Clemenza di Tito as models. The result provides a fascinating new insight into a familiar masterpiece.

Mozart’s music for Thamos, König in Ägypten is one of his most rarely performed theatre works. In 1773 he wrote chorusses for Gebler’s neo-Egyptian play, adding orchestral interludes in 1776-7 and providing a grand new setting of the final chorus in 1779-80, just before writing Idomeneo. With its solemn ceremonial music for priests and its sonorous orchestration with trombones, Thamos foreshadows the world of Die Zauberflöte, and thus makes a suitable companion for the Requiem. In this performance the musical scenes are linked by a specially-devised script, conveying the essence of the play.

The programme also includes a rare performance of the original choral version of Mozart’s Masonic Funeral Music K477, written for a Masonic ceremony in Vienna in 1785.