Requiem (Mozart)
Encyclopedia
The Requiem Mass in D minor (K. 626) by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
was composed in Vienna
in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death
. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr
was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the February 14 anniversary of his wife's death.
It is one of the most enigmatic pieces of music ever composed, mostly because of the myths and controversies surrounding it, especially around how much of the piece was completed by Mozart before his death. The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated
introit in Mozart's hand, as well as detailed drafts of the Kyrie
and the sequence
Dies Irae
as far as the first nine bars of "Lacrimosa", and the offertory
. It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost "scraps of paper" for the remainder; he later claimed the Sanctus
and Agnus
as his own. Walsegg probably intended to pass the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart's widow Constanze
. A modern contribution to the mythology is Peter Shaffer
's 1979 play Amadeus
, in which the mysterious messenger with the commission is the masked Antonio Salieri
who intends to claim authorship for himself.
The Requiem is scored for 2 basset horns in F, 2 bassoon
s, 2 trumpet
s in D, 3 trombone
s (alto, tenor & bass), timpani
(2 drums), violin
s, viola
and basso continuo (cello
, double bass
, and organ
). The vocal forces include soprano
, contralto
, tenor
, and bass
soloists and a SATB
mixed choir
.
(from Dies Irae
to Confutatis) were complete only in the vocal parts and the continuo (the figured
organ bass), though occasionally some of the prominent orchestral parts were briefly indicated, such as the violin part of the Confutatis and the musical bridges in the Recordare. The last movement of the sequence, the Lacrimosa
, breaks off after only eight bars
and was unfinished. The following two movements of the Offertorium were again partially done; the Domine Jesu Christe in the vocal parts and continuo (up until the fugue, which contains some indications of the violin part) and the Hostias in the vocal parts only.
was keen to have the work completed secretly by someone else, submit it to the count as having been completed by Mozart and collect the final payment. Joseph von Eybler
was one of the first composers to be asked to complete the score, and had worked on the movements from the Dies irae up until the Lacrimosa. In addition, a striking similarity between the openings of the Domine Jesu Christe movements in the requiems of the two composers suggests that Eybler at least looked at later sections. Following this work, he felt unable to complete the remainder, and gave the manuscript back to Constanze Mozart.
The task was then given to another composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr
. Süssmayr borrowed some of Eybler's work in making his completion, and added his own orchestration to the movements from the Kyrie
onward, completed the Lacrimosa, and added several new movements which a Requiem would normally comprise: Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. He then added a final section, Lux aeterna by adapting the opening two movements which Mozart had written to the different words which finish the Requiem Mass, which according to both Süssmayr and Mozart's wife was done according to Mozart's directions. Whether or not that is true, some people consider it unlikely that Mozart would have repeated the opening two sections if he had survived to finish the work completely.
Other composers may have helped Süssmayr. The Agnus Dei is suspected by some scholars to have been based on instruction or sketches from Mozart because of its similarity to a section from the Gloria of a previous Mass (Sparrow Mass
, K. 220) by Mozart, as was first pointed out by Richard Maunder. Others have pointed out that in the beginning of the Agnus Dei the choral bass quotes the main theme from the Introitus . Many of the arguments dealing with this matter, though, center on the perception that if part of the work is high quality, it must have been written by Mozart (or from sketches), and if part of the work contains errors and faults, it must have been all Süssmayr's doing. A frequent meta-debate is whether or not this is a fair way to judge the authorship of the parts of the work.
Another controversy is the suggestion that Mozart left explicit instructions for the completion of the Requiem on "little scraps of paper." It is commonly believed this claim was made by Constanze Mozart after it was public knowledge that the Requiem was actually completed by Süssmayr as a way to increase the impression of authenticity.
The completed score, initially by Mozart but largely finished by Süssmayr, was then dispatched to Count Walsegg complete with a counterfeited signature of Mozart and dated 1792. The various complete and incomplete manuscripts eventually turned up in the 19th century, but many of the figures involved did not leave unambiguous statements on record as to how they were involved in the affair. Despite the controversy over how much of the music is actually Mozart's, the commonly performed Süssmayr version has become widely accepted by the public. This acceptance is quite strong, even when alternate completions provide logical and compelling solutions for the work. A completion dating from 1819 by Sigismund Neukomm
has been recorded under the baton of Jean-Claude Malgoire
. Salzburg-born Neukomm, a student of Joseph Haydn
, provided a concluding Libera me, Domine for a performance of the Requiem on the feast of St Cecilia in Rio de Janeiro at the behest of Nunes Garcia
.
The confusion surrounding the circumstances of the Requiem's composition was created in a large part by Mozart's wife, Constanze. Constanze had a difficult task in front of her. She had to keep secret the fact that the Requiem was unfinished at Mozart's death, so she could collect the final payment from the commission. For a period of time, she also needed to keep secret the fact that Süssmayr had anything to do with the composition of the Requiem at all in order to allow Count Walsegg the impression that Mozart wrote the work entirely himself. Once she received the commission, she needed to carefully promote the work as Mozart's so she could continue to receive revenue from the work's publication and performance. During this phase of the Requiem's history, it was still important that the public accept that Mozart wrote the whole piece, as it would fetch larger sums from publishers and the public if it were completely by Mozart.
It is Constanze's efforts that created the flurry of half-truths and myths almost instantly after Mozart's death. According to Constanze, Mozart declared that he was composing the Requiem for himself, and that he had been poisoned. His symptoms worsened, and he began to complain about the painful swelling of his body and high fever. Nevertheless, Mozart continued his work on the Requiem, and even on the last day of his life, he was explaining to his assistant how he intended to finish the Requiem. Source materials written soon after Mozart’s death contain serious discrepancies which leave a level of subjectivity when assembling the "facts" about Mozart’s composition of the Requiem. For example, at least three of the conflicting sources, both dated within two decades following Mozart’s death, cite Constanze as their primary source of interview information. In 1798, Friedrich Rochlitz, the German biographical author and amateur composer, published a set of Mozart anecdotes which he claimed to have collected during his meeting with Constanze in 1796.
The Rochlitz publication makes the following statements:
The most highly disputed of these claims is the last one, the chronology of this setting. According to Rochlitz, the messenger arrives quite some time before the departure of Leopold for the coronation, yet we have record of his departure occurring in mid-July 1791. However, Constanze was in Baden
during all of June to mid-July, she would not have been present for the commission or the drive they were said to have taken together. Furthermore, The Magic Flute
(except for the Overture and March of the Priests) was completed by mid-July. La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by mid-July. There was no time for Mozart to work on the Requiem on the large scale indicated by the Rochlitz publication in the time frame provided.
Also in 1798, Constanze is noted to have given another interview to Franz Xaver Niemetschek
, another biographer looking to publish a compendium of Mozart's life. He published his biography in 1808, containing a number of claims about Mozart’s receipt of the Requiem commission:
This account, too, has fallen under scrutiny and criticism for its accuracy. According to letters, Constanze most certainly knew the name of the commissioner by the time this interview was released in 1800. Additionally, the Requiem was not given to the messenger until some time after Mozart’s death. This interview contains the only account of the claim that Constanze took the Requiem away from Wolfgang for a significant duration during his composition of it from Constanze herself. Otherwise, the timeline provided in this account is historically probable. However, the most highly accepted text attributed to Constanze is the interview to her second husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen
. After Nissen’s death in 1826, Constanze released the biography of Wolfgang (1828) that Nissen had compiled, which included this interview. Nissen states:
The Nissen publication lacks information following Mozart’s return from Prague.
after the Lacrimosa. H. C. Robbins Landon
argues that this Amen fugue was not intended for the Requiem, rather that it "may have been for a separate unfinished Mass in D minor" to which the Kyrie K. 341 also belonged. There is, however, compelling evidence placing the "Amen Fugue" in the Requiem based on current Mozart scholarship. First, the principal subject is the main theme of the requiem (stated at the beginning, and throughout the work) in strict inversion. Second, it is found on the same page as a sketch for the Rex Tremendae (together with a sketch for the overture of his last opera The Magic Flute
), and thus surely dates from late 1791. The only place where the word 'Amen' occurs in anything that Mozart wrote in late 1791 is in the sequence of the Requiem. Third, as Levin points out in the foreword to his completion of the Requiem, the addition of the Amen Fugue at the end of the sequence results in an overall design that ends each large section with a fugue.
Since the 1970s several musicologists, dissatisfied with the traditional "Süssmayr" completion, have attempted alternative completions of the Requiem. These include Franz Beyer, Duncan Druce
, C. Richard F. Maunder, H. C. Robbins Landon, Robert D. Levin
and Simon Andrews. Each version follows a distinct methodology for completion; for example, the Beyer edition makes revisions to Süssmayr
's orchestration in an attempt to create a more Mozartian style, whereas Robbins Landon has chosen to orchestrate parts of the completion using the partial work by Eybler
, thinking that Eybler's work is a more reliable guide of Mozart's intentions. Maunder's edition dispenses completely with the parts known to be written by Süssmayr, but retains the Agnus Dei after discovering an extensive paraphrase from an earlier Mass (Sparrow Mass
, K. 220). Druce's version make slight changes in orchestration, but retain Freystadler's ninth and tenth measure of the Lacrimosa, lengthening the movement substantially to end in the "Amen Fugue". Andrews' and Levin's versions retain the structure of Süssmayr while adjusting orchestration, voice leading and in some cases rewriting entire sections in an effort to make the work more Mozartean. For example, in the Levin and Andrews versions, the Sanctus fugue is completely rewritten and reproportioned and the Benedictus is restructured to allow for a reprise of the Sanctus fugue in the key
of D
(rather than Süssmayr's use of B-flat). Druce's version completely rewrites the Benedictus, only retaining the opening theme.
Maunder, Levin, and Druce use the sketch for the Amen fugue discovered in the 1960s to compose a longer and more substantial setting to the words "Amen" at the end of the sequence. In the Süssmayr version, "Amen" is set as a plagal cadence with a Picardy third (iv - I in D minor) at the end of the Lacrimosa: the Andrews version uses the Süssmayr ending. Maunder and Levin recompose the ending of the Lacrimosa to lead to an entire movement with "Amen" as the text. Other authors have also attempted the completion.
is divided into fourteen movements, with the following structure:
and in 1789 he was commissioned by Baron Gottfried van Swieten
to rearrange Messiah
. This work likely influenced the composition of Mozart's Requiem; the Kyrie is probably based on the And with his stripes we are healed chorus from Handel's Messiah (HWV 56), since the fugato, in which Handel was a master, is the same, with only slight variations by adding ornaments
on melisma
ta.
Some believe that the Introitus was inspired by Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (HWV 264
), and some have also remarked that the Confutatis may have been inspired by Sinfonia Venezia by Pasquale Anfossi
. Another possible influence may be Michael Haydn
's Requiem in C minor
; as the Introitus sounds rather similar to Mozart's.
played in the commissioning and completion of the Requiem and in Mozart's death generally. While the most recent retelling of this myth is Peter Shaffer
's play Amadeus
and the movie
made from it, it is important to note that the source of misinformation was actually a 19th century play by Alexander Pushkin, Mozart and Salieri, which was turned into an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov
and subsequently used as the framework for Amadeus.
. At some point during the fair, someone was able to gain access to the manuscript, tearing off the bottom right-hand corner of the second to last page (folio 99r/45r), containing the words "Quam olim d: C:" (an instruction that the "Quam olim" fugue of the Domine Jesu was to be repeated "da capo
", at the end of the Hostias). the perpetrator has not been identified and the fragment has not been recovered.
If the most common authorship theory is true, then "Quam olim d: C:" might very well be the last words Mozart wrote before he died. It is probable that whoever stole the fragment believed that to be the case.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
was composed in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death
Death of Mozart
The composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 1:00 am on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35, following a short illness.-Illness and last days:...
. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was an Austrian composer, now famous for his completion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem.-Early life:...
was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the February 14 anniversary of his wife's death.
It is one of the most enigmatic pieces of music ever composed, mostly because of the myths and controversies surrounding it, especially around how much of the piece was completed by Mozart before his death. The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated
Orchestration
Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...
introit in Mozart's hand, as well as detailed drafts of the Kyrie
Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....
and the sequence
Sequence (poetry)
A sequence is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year.The sequence has always been sung...
Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
as far as the first nine bars of "Lacrimosa", and the offertory
Offertory
The Offertory is the portion of a Eucharistic service when bread and wine are brought to the altar. The offertory exists in many liturgical Christian denominations, though the Eucharistic theology varies among celebrations conducted by these denominations....
. It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost "scraps of paper" for the remainder; he later claimed the Sanctus
Sanctus
The Sanctus is a hymn from Christian liturgy, forming part of the Order of Mass. In Western Christianity, the Sanctus is sung as the final words of the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayer of consecration of the bread and wine...
and Agnus
Agnus
The MOS Technology "Agnus", usually called Agnus is an integrated circuit in the custom chipset of the Commodore Amiga computer. The Agnus, Denise and Paula chips collectively formed the OCS and ECS chipsets....
as his own. Walsegg probably intended to pass the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart's widow Constanze
Constanze Mozart
Constanze Mozart was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Early years:Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father Fridolin Weber worked as a "double bass player, prompter and music copyist." Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer...
. A modern contribution to the mythology is Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
's 1979 play Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
, in which the mysterious messenger with the commission is the masked Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
who intends to claim authorship for himself.
The Requiem is scored for 2 basset horns in F, 2 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s, 2 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s in D, 3 trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s (alto, tenor & bass), timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
(2 drums), violin
Violin
The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s, viola
Viola
The viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
and basso continuo (cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
, and organ
Pipe organ
The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
). The vocal forces include soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
, and bass
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
soloists and a SATB
SATB
In music, SATB is an initialism for soprano, alto, tenor, bass, defining the voices required by a chorus or choir to perform a particular musical work...
mixed choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
.
Composition
At the time of Mozart's death on 5 December 1791, only the opening movement (Requiem aeternam) was completed in all of the orchestral and vocal parts. The following Kyrie and most of the sequenceSequence (poetry)
A sequence is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year.The sequence has always been sung...
(from Dies Irae
Dies Irae
Dies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
to Confutatis) were complete only in the vocal parts and the continuo (the figured
Figured bass
Figured bass, or thoroughbass, is a kind of integer musical notation used to indicate intervals, chords, and non-chord tones, in relation to a bass note...
organ bass), though occasionally some of the prominent orchestral parts were briefly indicated, such as the violin part of the Confutatis and the musical bridges in the Recordare. The last movement of the sequence, the Lacrimosa
Lacrimosa (Requiem)
The Lacrimosa is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Requiem mass. Its text comes from the 18th and 19th stanzas of the sequence. Many composers, including Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem.-Latin Text:...
, breaks off after only eight bars
Bar (music)
In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...
and was unfinished. The following two movements of the Offertorium were again partially done; the Domine Jesu Christe in the vocal parts and continuo (up until the fugue, which contains some indications of the violin part) and the Hostias in the vocal parts only.
Constanze Mozart and the Requiem after Mozart's death
The eccentric count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the Requiem from Mozart anonymously through intermediaries. The count, an amateur chamber musician who routinely commissioned works by composers and passed them off as his own, wanted a Requiem Mass he could claim he composed to memorialize the recent passing of his wife. Mozart received only half of the payment in advance, so upon his death his widow ConstanzeConstanze Mozart
Constanze Mozart was the wife of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.-Early years:Constanze Weber was born in Zell im Wiesental. Her mother was Cäcilia Weber, née Stamm. Her father Fridolin Weber worked as a "double bass player, prompter and music copyist." Fridolin's half-brother was the father of composer...
was keen to have the work completed secretly by someone else, submit it to the count as having been completed by Mozart and collect the final payment. Joseph von Eybler
Joseph Leopold Eybler
Joseph Leopold Eybler was an Austrian composer known today perhaps more for his friendship with Mozart than for his own music.-Life:...
was one of the first composers to be asked to complete the score, and had worked on the movements from the Dies irae up until the Lacrimosa. In addition, a striking similarity between the openings of the Domine Jesu Christe movements in the requiems of the two composers suggests that Eybler at least looked at later sections. Following this work, he felt unable to complete the remainder, and gave the manuscript back to Constanze Mozart.
The task was then given to another composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was an Austrian composer, now famous for his completion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem.-Early life:...
. Süssmayr borrowed some of Eybler's work in making his completion, and added his own orchestration to the movements from the Kyrie
Kyrie
Kyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....
onward, completed the Lacrimosa, and added several new movements which a Requiem would normally comprise: Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei. He then added a final section, Lux aeterna by adapting the opening two movements which Mozart had written to the different words which finish the Requiem Mass, which according to both Süssmayr and Mozart's wife was done according to Mozart's directions. Whether or not that is true, some people consider it unlikely that Mozart would have repeated the opening two sections if he had survived to finish the work completely.
Other composers may have helped Süssmayr. The Agnus Dei is suspected by some scholars to have been based on instruction or sketches from Mozart because of its similarity to a section from the Gloria of a previous Mass (Sparrow Mass
Sparrow Mass
The Missa Brevis No. 10 in C major, K. 220, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1775 or 1776 for Salzburg. The mass is scored for soloists, choir, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings and organ, the latter supplying figured bass for most of the duration...
, K. 220) by Mozart, as was first pointed out by Richard Maunder. Others have pointed out that in the beginning of the Agnus Dei the choral bass quotes the main theme from the Introitus . Many of the arguments dealing with this matter, though, center on the perception that if part of the work is high quality, it must have been written by Mozart (or from sketches), and if part of the work contains errors and faults, it must have been all Süssmayr's doing. A frequent meta-debate is whether or not this is a fair way to judge the authorship of the parts of the work.
Another controversy is the suggestion that Mozart left explicit instructions for the completion of the Requiem on "little scraps of paper." It is commonly believed this claim was made by Constanze Mozart after it was public knowledge that the Requiem was actually completed by Süssmayr as a way to increase the impression of authenticity.
The completed score, initially by Mozart but largely finished by Süssmayr, was then dispatched to Count Walsegg complete with a counterfeited signature of Mozart and dated 1792. The various complete and incomplete manuscripts eventually turned up in the 19th century, but many of the figures involved did not leave unambiguous statements on record as to how they were involved in the affair. Despite the controversy over how much of the music is actually Mozart's, the commonly performed Süssmayr version has become widely accepted by the public. This acceptance is quite strong, even when alternate completions provide logical and compelling solutions for the work. A completion dating from 1819 by Sigismund Neukomm
Sigismund von Neukomm
Sigismond Neukomm or Sigismund Ritter von Neukomm [after ennoblement as a knight] was an Austrian composer and pianist....
has been recorded under the baton of Jean-Claude Malgoire
Jean-Claude Malgoire
Jean-Claude Malgoire is a French conductor.He was born in Avignon, France and studied music locally and at the Paris Conservatory. His early musical career was as an oboist....
. Salzburg-born Neukomm, a student of Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, provided a concluding Libera me, Domine for a performance of the Requiem on the feast of St Cecilia in Rio de Janeiro at the behest of Nunes Garcia
José Maurício Nunes Garcia
José Maurício Nunes Garcia was a Brazilian classical composer, one of the greatest exponents of Classicism in the Americas....
.
The confusion surrounding the circumstances of the Requiem's composition was created in a large part by Mozart's wife, Constanze. Constanze had a difficult task in front of her. She had to keep secret the fact that the Requiem was unfinished at Mozart's death, so she could collect the final payment from the commission. For a period of time, she also needed to keep secret the fact that Süssmayr had anything to do with the composition of the Requiem at all in order to allow Count Walsegg the impression that Mozart wrote the work entirely himself. Once she received the commission, she needed to carefully promote the work as Mozart's so she could continue to receive revenue from the work's publication and performance. During this phase of the Requiem's history, it was still important that the public accept that Mozart wrote the whole piece, as it would fetch larger sums from publishers and the public if it were completely by Mozart.
It is Constanze's efforts that created the flurry of half-truths and myths almost instantly after Mozart's death. According to Constanze, Mozart declared that he was composing the Requiem for himself, and that he had been poisoned. His symptoms worsened, and he began to complain about the painful swelling of his body and high fever. Nevertheless, Mozart continued his work on the Requiem, and even on the last day of his life, he was explaining to his assistant how he intended to finish the Requiem. Source materials written soon after Mozart’s death contain serious discrepancies which leave a level of subjectivity when assembling the "facts" about Mozart’s composition of the Requiem. For example, at least three of the conflicting sources, both dated within two decades following Mozart’s death, cite Constanze as their primary source of interview information. In 1798, Friedrich Rochlitz, the German biographical author and amateur composer, published a set of Mozart anecdotes which he claimed to have collected during his meeting with Constanze in 1796.
The Rochlitz publication makes the following statements:
- Mozart was unaware of his commissioner’s identity at the time he accepted the project.
- He was not bound to any date of completion of the work
- He stated that it would take him around four weeks to complete.
- He requested, and received, 100 ducats at the time of the first commissioning message.
- He began the project immediately after receiving the commission.
- His health was poor from the outset; he fainted multiple times while working
- He took a break from writing the work to visit the PraterPraterThe Wiener Prater is a large public park in Vienna's 2nd district . The amusement park, often simply called "Prater", stands in one corner of the Wiener Prater and includes the .-Name:...
with his wife. - He shared with his wife that for certain he was writing this piece for his own funeral.
- He spoke of "very strange thoughts" regarding the unpredicted appearance and commission of this unknown man.
- He noted that the departure of Leopold to Prague for the coronation was approaching.
The most highly disputed of these claims is the last one, the chronology of this setting. According to Rochlitz, the messenger arrives quite some time before the departure of Leopold for the coronation, yet we have record of his departure occurring in mid-July 1791. However, Constanze was in Baden
Baden bei Wien
-Points of interest:The town offers several parks and a picturesque surrounding, of which the most frequented is the Helenental valley. Not far from Baden, the valley is crossed by a widespread aqueduct of the Vienna waterworks...
during all of June to mid-July, she would not have been present for the commission or the drive they were said to have taken together. Furthermore, The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
(except for the Overture and March of the Priests) was completed by mid-July. La clemenza di Tito was commissioned by mid-July. There was no time for Mozart to work on the Requiem on the large scale indicated by the Rochlitz publication in the time frame provided.
Also in 1798, Constanze is noted to have given another interview to Franz Xaver Niemetschek
Franz Xaver Niemetschek
Franz Xaver Niemetschek was a Czech philosopher, teacher and music critic. He wrote the first full-length biography of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart which has remained an important source of information about the composer.-Life:Niemetschek came from a large, musical family...
, another biographer looking to publish a compendium of Mozart's life. He published his biography in 1808, containing a number of claims about Mozart’s receipt of the Requiem commission:
- Mozart received the commission very shortly before the Coronation of Emperor Leopold IILeopold II, Holy Roman EmperorLeopold II , born Peter Leopold Joseph Anton Joachim Pius Gotthard, was Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary and Bohemia from 1790 to 1792, Archduke of Austria and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1765 to 1790. He was a son of Emperor Francis I and his wife, Empress Maria Theresa...
, and before he received the commission to go to Prague. - He did not accept the messenger’s request immediately; he wrote the commissioner and agreed to the project stating his fee, but urging that he could not predict the time required to complete the work.
- The same messenger appeared later, paying Mozart the sum requested plus a note promising a bonus at the work’s completion.
- He started composing the work upon his return from Prague.
- He fell ill while writing the work
- He told Constanze "I am only too conscious...my end will not be long in coming: for sure, someone has poisoned me! I cannot rid my mind of this thought."
- Constanze thought that the Requiem was overstraining him; she called the doctor and took away the score.
- On the day of his death he had the score brought to his bed.
- The messenger took the unfinished Requiem soon after Mozart’s death.
- Constanze never learned the commissioner’s name.
This account, too, has fallen under scrutiny and criticism for its accuracy. According to letters, Constanze most certainly knew the name of the commissioner by the time this interview was released in 1800. Additionally, the Requiem was not given to the messenger until some time after Mozart’s death. This interview contains the only account of the claim that Constanze took the Requiem away from Wolfgang for a significant duration during his composition of it from Constanze herself. Otherwise, the timeline provided in this account is historically probable. However, the most highly accepted text attributed to Constanze is the interview to her second husband, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen
Georg Nikolaus von Nissen
Georg Nikolaus von Nissen was a Danish diplomat and music historian...
. After Nissen’s death in 1826, Constanze released the biography of Wolfgang (1828) that Nissen had compiled, which included this interview. Nissen states:
- Mozart received the commission shortly before the coronation of Emperor Leopold and before he received the commission to go to Prague.
- He did not accept the messenger’s request immediately; he wrote the commissioner and agreed to the project stating his fee, but urging that he could not predict the time required to complete the work.
- The same messenger appeared later, paying Mozart the sum requested plus a note promising a bonus at the work’s completion.
- He started composing the work upon his return from Prague.
The Nissen publication lacks information following Mozart’s return from Prague.
Modern completions
In the 1960s a sketch for an Amen fugue was discovered, which some musicologists (Levin, Maunder) believe belongs to the Requiem at the conclusion of the sequenceSequence (poetry)
A sequence is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year.The sequence has always been sung...
after the Lacrimosa. H. C. Robbins Landon
H. C. Robbins Landon
Howard Chandler Robbins Landon was an American musicologist.He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and studied music at Swarthmore College and Boston University. He subsequently moved to Europe where he worked as a music critic. From 1947 he undertook research in Vienna on Joseph Haydn, a composer...
argues that this Amen fugue was not intended for the Requiem, rather that it "may have been for a separate unfinished Mass in D minor" to which the Kyrie K. 341 also belonged. There is, however, compelling evidence placing the "Amen Fugue" in the Requiem based on current Mozart scholarship. First, the principal subject is the main theme of the requiem (stated at the beginning, and throughout the work) in strict inversion. Second, it is found on the same page as a sketch for the Rex Tremendae (together with a sketch for the overture of his last opera The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
), and thus surely dates from late 1791. The only place where the word 'Amen' occurs in anything that Mozart wrote in late 1791 is in the sequence of the Requiem. Third, as Levin points out in the foreword to his completion of the Requiem, the addition of the Amen Fugue at the end of the sequence results in an overall design that ends each large section with a fugue.
Since the 1970s several musicologists, dissatisfied with the traditional "Süssmayr" completion, have attempted alternative completions of the Requiem. These include Franz Beyer, Duncan Druce
Duncan Druce
Duncan Druce is a British composer, string player and musicologist. He is particularly noted for the breadth of musical disciplines in which he specialises and the uniformly high standards of his work in all of these areas....
, C. Richard F. Maunder, H. C. Robbins Landon, Robert D. Levin
Robert D. Levin
Robert D. Levin is a classical performer, musicologist, and composer, and is the Artistic Director of the Sarasota Music Festival.-Education:...
and Simon Andrews. Each version follows a distinct methodology for completion; for example, the Beyer edition makes revisions to Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was an Austrian composer, now famous for his completion of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem.-Early life:...
's orchestration in an attempt to create a more Mozartian style, whereas Robbins Landon has chosen to orchestrate parts of the completion using the partial work by Eybler
Joseph Leopold Eybler
Joseph Leopold Eybler was an Austrian composer known today perhaps more for his friendship with Mozart than for his own music.-Life:...
, thinking that Eybler's work is a more reliable guide of Mozart's intentions. Maunder's edition dispenses completely with the parts known to be written by Süssmayr, but retains the Agnus Dei after discovering an extensive paraphrase from an earlier Mass (Sparrow Mass
Sparrow Mass
The Missa Brevis No. 10 in C major, K. 220, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1775 or 1776 for Salzburg. The mass is scored for soloists, choir, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings and organ, the latter supplying figured bass for most of the duration...
, K. 220). Druce's version make slight changes in orchestration, but retain Freystadler's ninth and tenth measure of the Lacrimosa, lengthening the movement substantially to end in the "Amen Fugue". Andrews' and Levin's versions retain the structure of Süssmayr while adjusting orchestration, voice leading and in some cases rewriting entire sections in an effort to make the work more Mozartean. For example, in the Levin and Andrews versions, the Sanctus fugue is completely rewritten and reproportioned and the Benedictus is restructured to allow for a reprise of the Sanctus fugue in the key
Key signature
In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes unless otherwise altered with an accidental...
of D
D major
D major is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature consists of two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor....
(rather than Süssmayr's use of B-flat). Druce's version completely rewrites the Benedictus, only retaining the opening theme.
Maunder, Levin, and Druce use the sketch for the Amen fugue discovered in the 1960s to compose a longer and more substantial setting to the words "Amen" at the end of the sequence. In the Süssmayr version, "Amen" is set as a plagal cadence with a Picardy third (iv - I in D minor) at the end of the Lacrimosa: the Andrews version uses the Süssmayr ending. Maunder and Levin recompose the ending of the Lacrimosa to lead to an entire movement with "Amen" as the text. Other authors have also attempted the completion.
Timeline
- January 2, 1772: Mozart participates in the premiere of Michael HaydnMichael HaydnJohann Michael Haydn was an Austrian composer of the classical period, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn.-Life:...
's Requiem in C minorRequiem (Michael Haydn)Michael Haydn wrote the Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo, or more generally Missa pro Defunctis, Klatzmann I:8, MH 155, following the death of the Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach in Salzburg on December 1771...
. - February 14, 1791: Anna, Count von Walsegg's wife, died at the age of 20.
- mid-July: A messenger (probably Franz Anton Leitgeb, the count's steward) arrived with note asking Mozart to write a Requiem Mass.
- mid-July: Commission from Domenico Guardasoni, impresario of the Prague National Theater to compose the opera, La clemenza di TitoLa clemenza di TitoLa clemenza di Tito , K. 621, is an opera seria in two acts composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Caterino Mazzolà, after Metastasio...
, for the festivities surrounding the coronation on September 6 of Leopold II as King of Bohemia. - August: Mozart works mainly on La clemenza di Tito; completed by September 5.
- August 25: Mozart leaves for Prague.
- September 6: Mozart conducts premiere of La clemenza di Tito.
- mid-September – September 28: Revision and completion of The Magic FluteThe Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
. - September 30: Premiere of The Magic Flute.
- October 7: Completed concerto in A for clarinet.
- October 8 – November 20: Mozart worked on the Requiem and a cantata.
- November 20: Confined to the bed due to his illness.
- December 5: Mozart diedDeath of MozartThe composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 1:00 am on 5 December 1791 at the age of 35, following a short illness.-Illness and last days:...
shortly after midnight. - December 7: Burial in St. Marx Cemetery.
- December 10: Requiem performed in St. Michael for a memorial for Mozart by the staff of the Theater auf der WiedenTheater auf der WiedenThe Theater auf der Wieden, also called the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wieden or the Wiednertheater, was a theater located in the then-suburban Wieden district of Vienna in the late 18th century...
. - early March 1792: probably the time Süssmayr finished the Requiem.
- January 2, 1793: Performance of Requiem for Constanze's benefit arranged by Gottfried van SwietenGottfried van SwietenGottfried, Freiherr van Swieten was a diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Austrian Empire during the 18th century...
. - early December 1793: Requiem delivered to the count.
- December 14, 1793: Requiem performed in the memory of the count's wife in the church at Wiener-Neustadt.
- February 14, 1794: Requiem performed again in Patronat Church Maria Schutz in SemmeringSemmering, AustriaSemmering is a town in the district of Neunkirchen in the Austrian state of Lower Austria. It is famous for its skiing, and has hosted the Alpine skiing World Cup several times. When the famous Semmering Railway was completed in 1854, it brought many tourists from Vienna to here. Today, tourists...
- 1799: Breitkopf & HärtelBreitkopf & HärtelBreitkopf & Härtel is the world's oldest music publishing house. The firm was founded in 1719 in Leipzig by Bernhard Christoph Breitkopf . The catalogue currently contains over 1000 composers, 8000 works and 15,000 music editions or books on music. The name "Härtel" was added when Gottfried...
published the Requiem. - 1809: Requiem was performed at a memorial service for Joseph HaydnJoseph HaydnFranz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, June 15 - 1833: EyblerJoseph Leopold EyblerJoseph Leopold Eybler was an Austrian composer known today perhaps more for his friendship with Mozart than for his own music.-Life:...
suffered stroke while conducting a performance of Mozart's Requiem. He died in 1846. - October 30, 1849: Requiem was performed at Frédéric ChopinFrédéric ChopinFrédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....
's funeral. - January 19, 1964: Requiem was performed as a memorial Mass for President John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
by Cardinal Richard Cushing, Archbishop of Boston, at the Cathedral of the Holy CrossCathedral of the Holy CrossThe Cathedral of the Holy Cross is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and the largest Roman Catholic church in New England....
in BostonBostonBoston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, MA.
Structure
The Sussmayr completion of the RequiemRequiem
A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...
is divided into fourteen movements, with the following structure:
- I. IntroitIntroitThe Introit is part of the opening of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations. In its most complete version, it consists of an antiphon, psalm verse and Gloria Patri that is spoken or sung at the beginning of the celebration...
us: Requiem aeternam (choir and sopranoSopranoA soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
solo) - II. Kyrie eleisonKyrieKyrie, a transliteration of Greek κύριε , vocative case of κύριος , meaning "Lord", is the common name of an important prayer of Christian liturgy, which is also called the Kýrie, eléison ....
(choir) - III. SequentiaSequence (poetry)A sequence is a chant or hymn sung or recited during the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, before the proclamation of the Gospel. By the time of the Council of Trent there were sequences for many feasts in the Church's year.The sequence has always been sung...
(text based on sections of the Dies IraeDies IraeDies Irae is a thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano . It is a medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and its rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic...
):- Dies irae (choir)
- Tuba mirum (soprano, contraltoContraltoContralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
, tenorTenorThe tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
and bassBass (voice type)A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
solo) - Rex tremendae majestatis (choir)
- Recordare, Jesu pie (soprano, contralto, tenor and bass solo)
- Confutatis maledictis (choir)
- Lacrimosa dies illaLacrimosa (Requiem)The Lacrimosa is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Requiem mass. Its text comes from the 18th and 19th stanzas of the sequence. Many composers, including Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem.-Latin Text:...
(choir)
- IV. OffertoriumOffertoryThe Offertory is the portion of a Eucharistic service when bread and wine are brought to the altar. The offertory exists in many liturgical Christian denominations, though the Eucharistic theology varies among celebrations conducted by these denominations....
:- Domine Jesu Christe (choir with solo quartet)
- Versus: Hostias et preces (choir)
- V. SanctusSanctusThe Sanctus is a hymn from Christian liturgy, forming part of the Order of Mass. In Western Christianity, the Sanctus is sung as the final words of the Preface of the Eucharistic Prayer, the prayer of consecration of the bread and wine...
:- Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth (choir)
- Benedictus (solo quartet, then choir)
- VI. Agnus DeiAgnus Dei (music)Agnus Dei, referring to the Christian theological concept the Lamb of God, and the associated liturgical text from the Roman Catholic Latin Mass has been set to music by many composers, as it is normally one of the movements or sections in a sung Mass setting or Requiem Mass...
(choir) - VII. CommunioCommunion (chant)The Communion is the Gregorian chant sung during the distribution of the Eucharist in the Roman Rite Catholic Mass. It is one of the antiphonal chants of the Proper of the Mass, and the final chant in the proper...
:- Lux aeterna (soprano solo and choir)
Influences
Mozart esteemed HandelGeorge Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
and in 1789 he was commissioned by Baron Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried van Swieten
Gottfried, Freiherr van Swieten was a diplomat, librarian, and government official who served the Austrian Empire during the 18th century...
to rearrange Messiah
Messiah (Handel)
Messiah is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel, with a scriptural text compiled by Charles Jennens from the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742, and received its London premiere nearly a year later...
. This work likely influenced the composition of Mozart's Requiem; the Kyrie is probably based on the And with his stripes we are healed chorus from Handel's Messiah (HWV 56), since the fugato, in which Handel was a master, is the same, with only slight variations by adding ornaments
Ornament (music)
In music, ornaments or embellishments are musical flourishes that are not necessary to carry the overall line of the melody , but serve instead to decorate or "ornament" that line. Many ornaments are performed as "fast notes" around a central note...
on melisma
Melisma
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note.-History:Music of ancient cultures used...
ta.
Some believe that the Introitus was inspired by Handel's Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline (HWV 264
The ways of Zion do mourn / Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline
The ways of Zion do mourn / Funeral Anthem for Queen Caroline, HWV 264, is an anthem composed by George Frideric Handel. The theme of the first chorus was taken by Mozart as the theme for the Requiem aeternam movement of his requiem mass.-Text:...
), and some have also remarked that the Confutatis may have been inspired by Sinfonia Venezia by Pasquale Anfossi
Pasquale Anfossi
Bonifacio Domenico Pasquale Anfossi was an Italian opera composer. Born in Taggia, Liguria, he studied with Niccolò Piccinni and Antonio Sacchini, and worked mainly in London, Venice and Rome....
. Another possible influence may be Michael Haydn
Michael Haydn
Johann Michael Haydn was an Austrian composer of the classical period, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn.-Life:...
's Requiem in C minor
Requiem (Michael Haydn)
Michael Haydn wrote the Missa pro defuncto Archiepiscopo Sigismondo, or more generally Missa pro Defunctis, Klatzmann I:8, MH 155, following the death of the Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach in Salzburg on December 1771...
; as the Introitus sounds rather similar to Mozart's.
Myths surrounding the Requiem
With all of these levels of deceptions and secrets, it is inevitable that many myths would emerge with respect to the circumstances of the work's completion. One series of myths surrounding the Requiem involves the role Antonio SalieriAntonio Salieri
Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
played in the commissioning and completion of the Requiem and in Mozart's death generally. While the most recent retelling of this myth is Peter Shaffer
Peter Shaffer
Sir Peter Levin Shaffer is an English dramatist and playwright, screenwriter and author of numerous award-winning plays, several of which have been filmed.-Early life:...
's play Amadeus
Amadeus
Amadeus is a play by Peter Shaffer.It is based on the lives of the composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, highly fictionalized.Amadeus was first performed in 1979...
and the movie
Amadeus (film)
Amadeus is a 1984 period drama film directed by Miloš Forman and written by Peter Shaffer. Adapted from Shaffer's stage play Amadeus, the story is based loosely on the lives of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, two composers who lived in Vienna, Austria, during the latter half of the...
made from it, it is important to note that the source of misinformation was actually a 19th century play by Alexander Pushkin, Mozart and Salieri, which was turned into an opera by Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
and subsequently used as the framework for Amadeus.
The autograph at the 1958 World's Fair
The autograph of the Requiem was placed on display at the World's Fair in 1958 in BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
. At some point during the fair, someone was able to gain access to the manuscript, tearing off the bottom right-hand corner of the second to last page (folio 99r/45r), containing the words "Quam olim d: C:" (an instruction that the "Quam olim" fugue of the Domine Jesu was to be repeated "da capo
Da capo
Da Capo is a musical term in Italian, meaning from the beginning . It is often abbreviated D.C. It is a composer or publisher's directive to repeat the previous part of music, often used to save space. In small pieces this might be the same thing as a repeat, but in larger works D.C...
", at the end of the Hostias). the perpetrator has not been identified and the fragment has not been recovered.
If the most common authorship theory is true, then "Quam olim d: C:" might very well be the last words Mozart wrote before he died. It is probable that whoever stole the fragment believed that to be the case.
External links
- Article on the Requiem at h2g2H2g2h2g2 is a British-based collaborative online encyclopedia project engaged in the construction of, in its own words, "an unconventional guide to life, the universe, and everything", in the spirit of the fictional publication The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the science fiction comedy series...
Performances of Mozart's Requiem on audio
- Ralf Otto, Bachchor Mainz (Levin completion), L'arpa festante München, Julia Kleiter, Gerhild Romberger, Daniel SansDaniel Sans- Professional career :Daniel Sans was a boy soprano in the choir of the Mainz Cathedral. He studied at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt with Martin Gründler...
, Klaus MertensKlaus MertensKlaus Mertens is a German bass and bass-baritone singer who is known especially for his interpretation of the complete works of Johann Sebastian Bach.-Professional career:Klaus Mertens took singing lessons while attending school...
, NCA - Karl BöhmKarl BöhmKarl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
, Vienna State Opera Concert Choir, Vienna Philharmonic, Edith MathisEdith MathisEdith Mathis is a renowned Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Mozart. She studied in Lucerne and debuted there in 1956 in The Magic Flute...
, Julia HamariJulia HamariJulia Hamari, originally Hamari Júlia , is a Hungarian mezzo-soprano and alto singer in opera and concert, appearing internationally. She is an academic voice teacher in Stuttgart.- Professional career :...
, Wiesław Ochman, Karl RidderbuschKarl RidderbuschKarl Ridderbusch was a German operatic bass, associated in particular with the music of Wagner. He was recognised as a notable exponent of the role of Hans Sachs.-Background and early career:...
, Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
1990 - Wolfgang GönnenweinWolfgang GönnenweinWolfgang Gönnenwein is a German conductor and an academic.- Biography :Wolfgang Gönnenwein studied music and German studies at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Tübingen...
, Consortium musicum, Teresa Żylis-GaraTeresa Zylis-GaraTeresa Żylis-Gara is a Polish operatic soprano who had a major international career during the 1950s through the 1990s...
, Oralia DominguezOralia DominguezOralia Dominguez is a Mexican operatic mezzo-soprano who has performed at many of the world's leading opera houses.She was born in the city of San Luis Potosí in northern Mexico and studied at the National Conservatory of Music where she made the acquaintance of the composer Carlos Chavez who...
, Peter SchreierPeter SchreierPeter Schreier is a German tenor and conductor.-Early life:Schreier was born in Meissen, Saxony, and spent his first years in the small village of Gauernitz, near Meissen, where his father was a teacher, cantor and organist...
, Franz CrassFranz CrassFranz Crass is a German bass.A native of Wipperfürth, Crass studied with Gerda Heuer in Wiesbaden and with Professor Clemens Glettenberg at the Hochschule für Musik in Köln. He won numerous competitions throughout Germany in the 1950s...
, Seraphim UK, 1997 - Jascha HorensteinJascha HorensteinJascha Horenstein was an American conductor.Horenstein was born in Kiev, Russian Empire , into a well-to-do Jewish family; his mother came from an Austrian rabbinical family and his father was Russian....
, Academy Chamber Choir, Vienna Symphony, Wilma LippWilma LippWilma Lipp is an Austrian operatic soprano, particularly associated with Mozart roles, especially Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute....
, Elisabeth HöngenElisabeth HöngenElisabeth Höngen was a German operatic mezzo-soprano, particularly associated with Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss roles, and with Verdi's Lady Macbeth....
, Murray DickieMurray DickieMurray Dickie was a Scottish tenor opera singer and director, who established his career in England, Austria and Italy during the 1950s. In addition to his extensive stage work he was a prolific recording artist.- Early career 1947-1955 :Dickie had his first vocal training in Glasgow...
, Ludwig WeberLudwig WeberLudwig Weber was an Austrian bass.Ludwig Weber was born in Vienna in 1899. He initially planned to pursue a career as a teacher and artist when he discovered his vocal promise and decided to pursue an opera career... - John Eliot GardinerJohn Eliot GardinerSir John Eliot Gardiner CBE FKC is an English conductor. He founded the Monteverdi Choir , the English Baroque Soloists and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique...
, English Baroque SoloistsEnglish Baroque SoloistsThe English Baroque Soloists is a chamber orchestra playing on period instruments, formed in 1978 by English conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Its repertoire comprises music from the early Baroque period to the Classical period...
, Monteverdi ChoirMonteverdi ChoirThe Monteverdi Choir was founded in 1964 by Sir John Eliot Gardiner for a performance of the Monteverdi Vespers in King's College Chapel, Cambridge. A specialist Baroque ensemble, the Choir has become famous for its stylistic conviction and extensive repertoire, encompassing music from the early...
, Barbara BonneyBarbara Bonney-Early life:Bonney was born in Montclair, New Jersey. As a child she studied piano and cello. When Bonney was 13 her family moved to Maine, where she became part of the Portland Youth Orchestra as a cellist...
, Anne Sofie von Otter, Hans Peter Blochwitz, Willard WhiteWillard WhiteSir Willard Wentworth White, OM, CBE is a Jamaican-born British bass-baritone.-Early life:He was born into a poor but supportive Jamaican family in Kingston. His father was a dockworker, his mother a housewife. White first began to learn music by listening to the radio and singing Nat King Cole... - "Requiem K 626 & Maurerische Trauermusik, K 477" by Jordi SavallJordi SavallJordi Savall i Bernadet is a Catalan viol player, conductor and composer. He has been one of the major figures in the field of Western early music since the 1970s, largely responsible for bringing the viol back to life on the stage...
, Le Concert des NationsLe Concert des NationsLe Concert des Nations is an orchestra with period instruments, able to perform the orchestral and symphonic repertoire from the Baroque to Romanticism: 1600 - 1850. The orchestra was created in 1989, the youngest of the groups conducted by the Catalan maestro and viola da gamba virtuoso Jordi Savall...
and La Capella Reial de CatalunyaLa Capella Reial de CatalunyaLa Capella Reial de Catalunya was created in Barcelona in 1987 by its conductor Jordi Savall as a group of soloist singers whose aim is to make the repertoire of Catalan historical music and, by extension, that of Spanish and other music widely known throughout the world...
- Alia Vox AVSA 9880 - Leonard BernsteinLeonard BernsteinLeonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, Bavarian Radio Symphony OrchestraBavarian Radio Symphony OrchestraThe Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in German Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks is the internationally renowned orchestra of the Bayerischer Rundfunk , based in Munich, Germany. It is one of the three principal orchestras in the city of Munich, along with the Munich Philharmonic...
, Marie McLaughlinMarie McLaughlinMarie McLaughlin is a Scottish operatic soprano.A light lyric soprano, McLaughlin is noted for her performances as Susanna , Zerlina , Despina , Norina , Marzelline , Nannetta , Micaëla and Tytania Marie McLaughlin (born Hamilton, South Lanarkshire 2 November 1954) is a Scottish operatic...
, Marie Ewing, Jerry HadleyJerry HadleyJerry Hadley was an American operatic tenor. He received three Grammy awards for his vocal performances in the recordings of Jenůfa , Susannah , and Candide...
, Cornelius Hauptmann