On the Day of the Faithful Departed, we fulfilled our aim of maintaining worship in the Chapel with the 'Évora version' of Mozart's Requiem and concluded the programme of homage to D. Francisco, the Foundation's founder.

"Four voices, solo cello, a pair of bassoons, double bass and a Lusitanian organ from the first half of the 18th century, in mesotonic temperament: the "Mozart à portuguesa", by its formation, might even seem to have been written to order for today's concert protocols, but in fact it corresponds to a centuries-old Lusitanian tradition. Ricardo Bernardes made the musicological edition of the work from manuscripts found in Évora, dating from the period between the end of the 18th century and the first decade of the 19th century.

As at that time all attention was centred on the Royal Chapel in Lisbon, musical groups from outside the capital, including Évora, had smaller line-ups. "A tradition was established of performing works in arrangements for an 'expanded bass continuo', i.e. organ, bassoon, cello and double bass," he explains. Mozart's Requiem has also undergone this adaptation: Bernardes uses a manuscript that sets the piece for organ, "small harpsichord" (solo cello, with extremely virtuosic writing), two bassoons and "large harpsichord" (double bass). The vocal parts are identical to those in the version of the work by Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766-1803), Mozart's disciple who finalised the score left incomplete by his teacher, and are sung by a vocal quartet, giving the performance an intimate quality."