We got to see Mozart's Requiem the other week. It was at St John's square, which is a church near Westminster. Quite a cool church, it is in the middle of this square, hidden back from the main street. Unfortunately we couldn't find any where to eat. Westminster is weird like that, you would think there would be heaps of restaurants around to service all the MPs, but perhaps they like to remain in parliament house, would hate to have to mingle with the plebs after all. So we ended up eating in this taxi driver restaurant, I mean it's where all the taxi drivers eat, not that it was an ode to the movie. So imagine massive plates of pasta and unhealthy looking men. The food wasn't too bad, but you would think there would be a niche in this area which needs filling.
The concert itself was not bad, once they got to the actual requiem. They had really pushed the requiem, and hadn't given any other information as to what else they would be playing. So during the first half I'm sitting there thinking, this doesn't sound like Mozart, where's the melody, and why are there no singers. At interval I paid my £2 for a programme, Britten and Purcell, no wonder there was no tune. Damn them. They put the piece that everyone was there for in the second half. Because they know most people would leave at interval otherwise.
Once they finally got to the requiem it was really good. The choir they had was really good, it was nice to listen to it in a church as well, you feel it's fitting. Everyone says that the second half of the requiem isn't as good (it wasn't written by Mozart, he died halfway through writing it). I think that's unfair on the composer who ended up finishing it, I enjoyed it the whole way through.
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