Klaus Mäkelä
Oslo Philharmonic Choir Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Kaija Saariaho

Of the more than 600 works written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), none is shrouded in more mystery than the Requiem, which was unfinished when he died. How much of the music did he write himself? Did he know who commissioned the work? Did he write a Mass for the dead for himself?

The commission did not come from the composer Antonio Salieri, who is portrayed as the villain in the hit film Amadeus, but from Count Franz von Walsegg, who commissioned the piece to commemorate his recently deceased wife.

Mozart only managed to complete the first movement, but left detailed instructions for his student, Franz Xaver Süssmayer, who finished the piece. Mozart’s Requiem is one of the composer’s most original pieces with great musical and emotional range.

“There is no other music like it. Every show is refreshing and remarkable," the opera director Peter Sellars said about Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023). Saariaho is considered one of the greatest composers of our time and is regularly a part of the Oslo Philharmonic's program.

Kaija Saariaho wrote the orchestral piece Orion for The Cleveland Orchestra in 2002. In Greek mythology, Orion is a human, the son of the sea god Poseidon, and a fearless hunter who is set as a constellation in the sky after his death.

In the first movement, "Memento mori" ("remember the inevitability of death") develops a mystic introduction to a powerful outburst. The second movement, "Winter sky," is an atmospheric description of the starry sky, while the intense third movement, "Hunter," describes Orion's adventure as a hunter.