Mozart, the Requiem reinvented
The story
For more than two centuries, we have lived with a frustration: Mozart’s Requiem, left unfinished at his death in 1791, has only come down to us in a posthumous version hastily completed by his assistant Süßmayr.
In 2011, I took hold of Mozart’s original manuscript to bring it back to life. Using the latest musicological research and my deep knowledge of Mozart’s style, I recreated the orchestration that the master might have written, to bring out the sound that’s so typical of his last works.
The gamble paid off in 2016: acclaimed by international critics and adopted by René Jacobs, Raphaël Pichon and Guillaume Connesson, my version has now been performed more than sixty times across Europe. It finally offers music lovers what they have been waiting for over two centuries: to hear Mozart in his Requiem.
Press
« A great deal of imagination, great delicacy, and a real sense of breathing space »
Sophie Bourdais, Télérama, 30th November 2017
« The results are surprisingly bold »
David Threasher, Gramophone, November 2017
Lindsay Kemp’s review of the record in the same issue:
« A powerful tour de force »
Jack Pepper, Opera Today, November 2017
To find out more
René Jacobs' record
In 2016, René Jacobs did me the honor of premiering my first completed version of Mozart’s Requiem. This recording, praised by critics and acclaimed by audiences, made history in the interpretation of Mozart’s work. You can listen to it here:
Access the score for free
To download the score of the Requiem free of charge, please complete this form:
NEW VERSION
OF THE REQUIEM
COMING 2026/27
Dutron, Mass in A minor: serving the sacred
The story
After years spent conversing with Mozart through his unfinished Requiem, composing my own mass seemed like the obvious thing to do. Not to imitate, but to rediscover what has always fascinated me: touching on the essential through simplicity.
The work places the liturgical text at its center and focuses on the heart of the words. The music becomes its humble and vibrant messenger: appealing at times to emotion, passion, and contemplation, it invites the audience to reflect with gentleness and intensity.
Commissioned by the association Le Toit du Chœur, this Mass in A minor, lasting one hour and twenty minutes, was premiered on September 28, 2024, at the Romanesque abbey church of Saint-Savin in Lavedan by the ensemble ἐφήμερος under the direction of Arnaud Penet. The universal Latin text allows the music to transcend borders. Drawing on the sources of Bach and Mozart while speaking the language of today, this Mass in A minor offers an experience that seeks not complexity but authenticity, inviting the listener to suspend time.
See more excerpts
Testimonials about the creation process
This mass, in its modernity, allows us to feel deep within ourselves this vibration of love that unites us and connects us to God. It is as if the world above were revealed through it and came to visit us with its myriad angels. It is a work of great sensitivity that provokes many emotions and touches the heart and soul. Power meets fragility, gravity meets gentleness, the earthly meets the heavenly. It is also a contemporary work of great maturity with a powerful and new spiritual dimension for the women and men of our time.
They say that composing a mass is like building invisible stones. This Mass in A rises like a cathedral of sound, where each note breathes like a prayer set to music. With passion, the composer weaves an intense dialogue between voices and instruments. The result: a score that comes alive! Pierre-Henri and I shared a deep complicity. The ensemble ἐφήμερος gives the score its sacred architecture, where each chord, each silence, carries within it the breath of a song that seeks eternity, the breath of a song in which humanity finally finds its resonance.
We spent an incredible week filled with music and human warmth, centred around the sublime work composed by Pierre Henri. We wished the week would never end, as the emotional power of this mass transported us to a little piece of paradise. I wish this magnificent work a long life!
Jean-Vincent Roux
pastoral worker at St-Savin Abbey church
Arnaud Penet
conductor of the ensemble ἐφήμερος
Gaël Bacquet
violinist
This mass, in its modernity, allows us to feel deep within ourselves this vibration of love that unites us and connects us to God. It is as if the world above were revealed through it and came to visit us with its myriad angels. It is a work of great sensitivity that provokes many emotions and touches the heart and soul. Power meets fragility, gravity meets gentleness, the earthly meets the heavenly. It is also a contemporary work of great maturity with a powerful and new spiritual dimension for the women and men of our time.
They say that composing a mass is like building invisible stones. This Mass in A rises like a cathedral of sound, where each note breathes like a prayer set to music. With passion, the composer weaves an intense dialogue between voices and instruments. The result: a score that comes alive! Pierre-Henri and I shared a deep complicity. The ensemble ἐφήμερος gives the score its sacred architecture, where each chord, each silence, carries within it the breath of a song that seeks eternity, the breath of a song in which humanity finally finds its resonance.
We spent an incredible week filled with music and human warmth, centred around the sublime work composed by Pierre Henri. We wished the week would never end, as the emotional power of this mass transported us to a little piece of paradise. I wish this magnificent work a long life!
Arnaud Penet
conductor of the ensemble ἐφήμερος
Gaël Bacquet
violinist
Jean-Vincent Roux
pastoral worker at St-Savin Abbey church
Would you like to perform the work?
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Other works
When Clouds Lifted the Earth
This seven-minute piece for violin and piano, premiered in 2025, explores a dialogue between sky and earth, power and fragility. The violin embodies this duality suspended between elevation and anchoring, unfolding a soundscape traversed by radical contrasts.
The success of this first version at the Marie Cantagrill International Competition led me to consider developing it into a concerto for violin and orchestra. The two following movements will extend the poetic universe of the first.
This triptych, scheduled for 2026, will further explore elemental forces and their paradoxical encounters.
When Clouds Lifted the Earth
This seven-minute piece for violin and piano, premiered in 2025, explores a dialogue between sky and earth, power and fragility. The violin embodies this duality suspended between elevation and anchoring, unfolding a soundscape traversed by radical contrasts.
The success of this first version at the Marie Cantagrill International Competition led me to consider developing it into a concerto for violin and orchestra. The two following movements will extend the poetic universe of the first.
This triptych, scheduled for 2026, will further explore elemental forces and their paradoxical encounters.
Continue orchestrating Mozart: the unfinished operas
In 2019, Raphaël Pichon entrusted me with the delicate task of completing the orchestration of fragments from Mozart’s unfinished operas. In Lo Sposo deluso and L’Oca del Cairo, I reconstructed what might have been: an overture to Lo Sposo in which the winds already hint at the world of The Marriage of Figaro, interrupted vocal ensembles that regain their dramatic momentum.
The project, acclaimed by international critics and recorded by Harmonia Mundi with the Pygmalion ensemble, reveals a Mozart in full exploration, between The Abduction from the Seraglio and the Da Ponte trilogy.
For the screen
Composing for film
I create soundscapes where surreal strings and synthesizers merge. As an orchestrator on Taken 3 and collaborator with Antonio Gambale on Unorthodox, I have forged my language in major productions where acoustics and electronics complement each other.
My signature lies in the treatment of strings. As a trained violinist, I know how to make these instruments sound in 2025: by treating them electronically and playing with textures. My strings are deliberately imperfect to capture the humanity of the characters. My synthesizers can be aggressive or organic, icy or vocal. I bring this approach –both artisan and poet– to every project.
Inspired by Lynch, Tarantino, and Wong Kar-Wai, I first think in images. I work with minimalist textures and hypnotic repetitions. My music creates space, accompanies without dictating, moves without imposing.
Another Alice
Original score
Directed by Mattéo La Capria
Best music prize – International Short Film Festival DIOGENES
Oxegyn
Original score
Directed by Valentin Spandonis
The film will be released in 2026 – illustrative image
Taken 3
Orchestration
Directed by Olivier Megaton
Original score by Nathanaël Méchaly
Unorthodox - Netflix series
Musical collaboration – strings recording
Directed by Anna Winger and Alexa Karolinski
Original music by Antonio Gambale
Nominated twice for Emmy Awards for “best music composition” and “best title music”
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To download the Requiem score for free, click here.