I can't tell you anything about the Beyer, as I am not familiar with it.  The Levin's main difference in the choral score is an extended amen section after the Lacrimosa, and additions to the Osanna sections.  The largest differences are int he orchestrations, which have been completed to be more similar to what Mozart wrote in the the part he did complete.  Levine, as I'm sure you know, is based at Harvard and a well known Mozart scholar, and has completed other works which Mozart left unfinished.  I have sung the Sussmayr many times, and the Levine only a couple of times, but it does seem to me to be more complete.  The scholarship is there, although, of course, we will never know how Mozart himself feels about any of these editions.

I strongly recommend the Beyer edition. The voice parts are exactly the same as the familiar Süssmayr version (except for an optional extended Hosanna), but the orchestration is thinned out and much more delicate. Especially if you have a more modest-sized choir I find that the Beyer is a much more pleasurable musical experience.

I put this query aside to answer later, when I had more time.  Now's the time.

 

I have looked at both editions.  As Kathy Boyce wrote, Levin corrected the problems that Suessmayr created, including writing a full-scale fugue for the Osanna and a longer ending for the Lacrimosa -- both standard practice in Mozart's style.

 

Beyer is less interventionist.  He does provide an extended Osanna that is optional, but mainly confines himself to correcting the obvious errors in voice-leading and orchestration that Suessmayr made.  Other than the Osanna ending, there is nothing in Beyer that a typical listener would recognize as a departure from the Suessmayr norm.

 

I use Beyer when I perform the Requiem, mainly because I want the listener's focus to be on the entire work and not on the details of changes from tradition.  However, I make one significant adjustment to his edition, to conform to Classical-period practice: rather than play the Osanna the second time (after the Benedictus) in B-flat, I've rewritten the orchestral ending to the Benedictus to provide a cadence leading to D and play the original, D-major Osanna again.  I don't think this change would be noticeable to the average listener, but it satisfies my need for that bit of stylistic symmetry.

 

Best regards,

Jerome Hoberman

 

Music Director/Conductor, The Hong Kong Bach Choir & Orchestra

Principal Conductor, Baguio Cathedral International Music Festival (Philippines)

Great summary, Jerome.  Have you thought about making your Osanna "fix" available to those of us who can't composer/rewirte? (:-) 

 

I'm doing the Beyer - again - in a month, but I put a bit of Sussmayr back in here and there.  I miss the trumpets in the OCnfutatis, for instance.

 

David

I have conducted the Levin version twice: singers and players alike found it delicate and expressive of the spirit of Mozart.  I reviewed the score in the Journal of the Conductor's Guild, 2006.  The article contains much more detail than this space allows.

 

 

Wishart Bell