How singing Mozart in Vienna changed my life

Never mind your views on life, the universe, Brexit and the travails of Manchester United Football Club, for any truly rounded man, the key question is much simpler: are you a tenor or a bass? And for any truly rounded woman: alto or soprano?

Having returned to singing – let’s just say well into adulthood – I spent years straining to be a tenor before I realised that my natural home was with the basses – my voice broke late in life I explained – and I’ve never looked back (or tried to hit a high C) since.

Which is why on a wintry Monday morning in Vienna I find myself standing with about 20 fellow basses as part of a choir preparing to perform Mozart’s Requiem in the baroque splendour of the Karlskirche church. 

We are being put through our paces by Jeremy Jackman, our musical director, former King’s Singer and a consummate professional who manages to be both critical and kindly.

“You’ve done jolly well this morning, but the truth is that sounded just a bit… scratchy,” he says as we work our way through the exquisite latter part of the Confutatis section of the Sequenz of the Requiem. “Just think of every note as a planet,” he says. “There’s a sunny side and a dark side – and you don’t want to come anywhere near the dark side. Now then, let’s try it again. And please, remember that this is the heart and soul of the piece…”

We do not have much time. In a little over 36 hours, we will be taking our places in the Karlskirche for a performance timed to coincide exactly with the day and time of Mozart’s death – between midnight and 1am on Dec 5 1791. 

All of us, although amateurs, are familiar with the piece and most have already performed it in public. I am one of only four for whom this is a first, and though I have for several years been a member of the Telegraph Choir (one of many to have sprung up in the Gareth Malone "singing is good for you" era), this is a quantum leap. I confess I am nervous.

We know the notes, but there are matters of nuance and phrasing and Latin pronunciation that Jeremy wants to bring to our attention. Such as making sure that we put the proper emphasis on the “x” at the end of the start of Rex tremendae and that we are all in no doubt about what to do when we see a dotted crochet and a semi-quaver. “Hold that note too long, and I just know you’re going to miss the next one,” he says. “And basses there was something a bit off key there – you seem to have caught something off the sopranos, though don’t ask me how that happened! Oh, and if you are going to take a sneaky breath there, don’t pronounce the ‘t’ in the wrong place.”

Many of my fellow singers are regulars with RunBySingers, the British company that has brought us here and which specialises in trips that involve singing great pieces of music in great locations. Most are from the UK, but there are Finns, Americans and a couple from Barcelona. There are no auditions for places on these tours – but you do need to know how to sing.

Over coffee breaks, I catch snatches of conversation about previous choral escapades in Riga and Budapest; Assissi and Evora in Portugal. My ears prick up when I hear talk of a “certain frisson” that developed between two of the singers on one of the trips.

“Oh yes, we’ve had romances; there have been babies too,” says Nick Couchman, the ebullient founder of RunBySingers and himself a bass who met his partner Jane (an alto) while singing in a local choir in Saffron Waldon. “The social side to these trips is very much a part of the experience. People bond over the music and then may explore further afield together.”

In Riga, that meant a morning spent singing and an afternoon exploring its Unesco-listed medieval heritage; in Budapest, rehearsals followed by soaks in the city’s fabulous hot spring baths. 

“I loved it. We sang in the morning and lay in the sun in the afternoon,” said one of the singers recalling a trip to Evora. “It’s a great way of seeing new places and having a real purpose and focus on something we all love.”

There wasn’t much chance for sunbathing in Vienna last week. As I landed the city was coated in one of the season’s first falls of snow. That, combined with the twinkling lights of the street decorations and Christmas markets, lent the city a warming, welcoming seasonal hue.  

In between rehearsals – conducted in a studio in the headquarters of the ORF Austrian Broadcasting Corporation – there was time to walk and shop and gallery hop (Vienna is currently hosting a Brueghel special). I chose to make a special pilgrimage to the St Marx Cemetery in which Mozart was interred and the city’s even grander Central Cemetery in which he is also commemorated alongside some of the city’s other musical luminaries – Beethoven, Mahler, Schoenberg, Strauss, to name but four. I also paid respects at the Mozart Monument and saluted the playful statue of the Magic Flute players in… Mozartplatz.

When it comes to great pieces of music in great locations, it doesn’t get much better than Mozart’s Requiem – composed while he was on his death bed, in the end dictating it to his student, Franz Xaver Süssmayr – and Vienna, a city of extraordinary grandeur and creativity (home, too, to Gustav Klimt and Secessionism. To say nothing of Sigmund Freud). 

I have been to Vienna many times and never tire of its infinite variety. But I had a musical score to master and a concert to perform.

As we took our places in the Karlskirche just before midnight the “pinch me now” moments were coming thick and fast. I’d been in this magnificent church at least three times before to hear the Requiem – but as a member of the paying audience. I’d never imagined one day taking my place in the choir. 

The final rehearsal had gone OK, but hadn’t been brilliant. I was nervous – excited too. And then the orchestra struck those first immensely moving bars, and we basses came in with the opening words… “Re-qui-em ae-ter-nam, ae-ter-nam do-na e-is...”

And at that point something utterly magical happened. We continued in tune and harmonised in a way we never had before. All those hours of rehearsal in the ORF studio – and before that sitting at home at the kitchen table listening and repeating over and over again – were coming to fruition. We glided seamlessly from the Introitus to the Kyrie (always a challenge) to the Sequenz and beyond, our singing interspersed with the sublime tones of the professional soloists with whom we shared the stage. 

There were one or two very minor hiccups, but in the end under the masterful direction (and beady eye) of Jeremy, we sang the piece in its entirety. Well. No, better than well; beautifully. 

As we stumbled out into the cold Vienna night one of the older basses tapped me on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you did it. You’ve now sung the Requiem. There’s hope for everyone!”

I smiled – he meant it kindly – and let the emotions and passions of the moment swirl through me.

I had indeed sung Mozart’s Requiem. In Vienna. It was indescribably wonderful. Life, and indeed death, would never be the same again.

The essentials

RunBySingers (runbysingers.org) offers the 2019 Mozart Requiem in Vienna package for £895pp (sharing) with three nights at the Hotel am Konzerthaus, a typically Austrian evening meal, and welcome reception. Flights not included. Jeremy Jackman will direct. Reductions for non-singing partners. Booking from Jan 8 2019. Email emma@runbysingers.org to express interest. 

Hotel Am Konzerthaus MGallery by Sofitel (0043 1 716 160; hotelamkonzerthaus.com) is an arty choice close to the Karlskirche. 

Only in Vienna (The Urban Explorer; £16.95) by Duncan J D Smith is an invaluable guide to the city’s hidden corners: onlyinguides.com (0844 871 1514)

More information: austria.info; vienna.info; telegraph.co.uk/tt-vienna-guide