Mozart, Kyrie in D minor, K.341

The Vienna State Opera Chorus's All Saints' Day concert has become an institution in Vienna. Although the superbly homogeneous and subtly shading chorus plays the most important role throughout this concert, the orchestra also unfolds its warm and colorful and, at times, forceful personality. The concert in which this work was recorded took place on All Saints' Day 1986 under the musical direction of Claudio Abbado. Mozart's Kyrie in D minor K. 341 is a monumental torso written most likely in Vienna in 1788. It dispenses with all traditional restrictions and conventions of church music; for example, it contains no solo vocal parts, includes clarinets and four horns for the first time in Mozart's sacred music, and prefigures the tragic solemnity of the Requiem with the use of the same key of D minor.