Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K626 was incomplete when the composer died in 1791. It was left to his pupil Süssmayr to finish the work from the sketches and instructions left by the composer.

Maybe that knowledge has often left me with a feeling in previous live performances that a few passages don’t musically scale the heights of the greatest moments in the piece.

Any such response was totally blown away by this stunning account from Simon Halsey. The dedication and commitment here had the listener hanging off every note.

Voices en Masse – Mozart’s Requiem (Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra). Photo © Peter Donnelly

Halsey’s ability to meld some 220 community singers and the TSO Chorus into a single instrument of amazing range, tonal lustre and precision was something phenomenal. As with the even larger-scale event of the Brahms German Requiem in February last year, the bulk of the choral forces occupied the stalls of the Federation Hall while the audience enjoyed the spectacular acoustic and view from the balcony.

While the choral quality was consistently superb, there were also moments in the Recordare and Confutatus where the purity and refinement of the higher...