CLASSICAL ERA

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Since Mozart's Requiem was unfinished at the time of his death, it went down in history
surrounded by an aura of legends. But aside from all the myths, its beauty remains. A gravely
solemn and transcendent piece... Here's everything you always wanted to know about Mozart's
last composition.

1791 was both an exceptional and fateful year for Mozart. In addition to his Masonic Cantata
and to the opera seria La Clemenza di Tito, he wrote two of his major works: The Magic Flute, a
wonderful and initiatory opera buffa, and his famous Requiem, a work surrounded by legends
and left unfinished because of his death at the age of only 35, in poverty and sickness.

His own tribute

Here’s what Mozart wrote to his father Leopold, four years before writing his Requiem:
“As death [...] is the true goal of our existence, I have formed during the last few years such
close relationships with this best and truest friend of mankind that death's image is not only no
longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling.”

Alone and against everybody

In 1789, problems were piling up for Mozart. If on one hand, two years earlier, his Don Giovanni
was considered a triumph, times had now changed in Vienna, and the composer was out of
fashion. The times were no longer in favor of art: following the French Revolution, tensions were
escalating throughout Europe and Austria was preparing itself for war.

Culture was the first to suffer: the number of concerts was cut in half and Mozart was consumed
by financial debt. In 1790, the emperor of Austria and the protector of the composer, Joseph II
passed away, and the new emperor slowly cast Mozart aside, in particular, due to his
connections with the Freemasons.

Mozart was also forced separated from his mentor and friend, “Papa Haydn”. In fact, a theatre
director had just offered both composers a very advantageous contract in London. But unlike
Haydn, Mozart refused and decided to stay in Vienna. Did he hope to take revenge for all the
indignities he had suffered? Was he too sick to leave? In any case, Mozart was surely going
through the darkest period of his life. As Jean Blot, one of his biographers writes: “approaching
the history of his Requiem already means to enter agony.”

The legend
In Amadeus, the film shows Salieri - Mozart‘s mortal enemy in the film - offering his assistance
to write the Requiem as the dying composer dictates. But this fictionalized version of the
composer’s life is not faithful to the actual history of the Requiem. In reality, there was no
masked Machiavellian Salieri who paid a visit to Mozart, several weeks earlier, to commission a
Requiem Mass and announce his imminent death.

The person who really commissioned the mass is Count Franz von Walsegg, a fan of trickery,
often commissioning works by composers to then pass them off as his own at his private
concerts, those, in fact, these were no more than copies of already existing pieces.

To honor the memory of his young wife, and to show himself as a brilliant composer, he
anonymously commissioned the Requiem from Mozart. Already very weak, the young composer
also had other projects to finish, the sum of money promised by the Count motivated him to get
to work.

The day before his death, on 4 December 1791, the first performance was presented at
Mozart’s bedside with three singers, accompanied by the composer playing the viola. Too ill to
continue, he interrupted the performance and called his former pupil, Süssmayr, to show him
how to complete his work. At midnight, “the Divine Mozart” passed away. He was buried the
following day in a mass grave in St. Marx Cemetery, in Vienna, with 16 other bodies.

A piece written by many

It is not quite accurate to say that the Requiem is entirely Mozart’s work. On the day of his
death, only two parts were (almost) completed: the Introitus and the Kyrie. The rest remained
only as drafts, with only the voice and some indications. The famous Lacrimosa, so beloved
today, was actually incomplete and stopped after only eight bars. It is said that during the
performance that took place the day before he died, Mozart, at the eighth bar of Lacrimosa,
burst into tears believing they were the last words he set to music.

After Mozart's death, his wife Constanze took possession of her husband’s letters. She then
asked two of Mozart's former students to complete the work: Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver
Süssmayr, in order to collect the promised payment. Count Walsegg (who commissioned the
work) was seemingly unaware of the change and therefore gave Constance the much-awaited
sum of money.

Süssmayr, the student who actually completed Mozart's Requiem, was chosen by Constanze
because of his writing style similar to that of her husband.
He did not, however, possess his genius. In order to complete the work, he drew inspiration
largely from the fragments left by Mozart, as well as many of his earlier works. For the ending,
Süssmayr chose to use the beginning of the Requiem - was he perhaps afraid of betraying his
master, or did he hope to raise the dead by completing the mass in his name...
As strong as death

Everything is calculated so that the work resembles death itself: it is both pathetic and terrifying,
calm, and terrible. Written for four soloists (soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass), choir and
symphonic orchestra, Mozart excluded all wind instruments (flute and oboe), considered too
joyful, in order to only keep the basset horn, an ancestor of the clarinet, with a more muted
sound. Sad and solemn, the orchestra is perfect for a requiem mass, and Mozart’s writing itself
is sober, even austere: there are no sparkly effects or virtuosic solos.

The spectacular is to be found elsewhere: the choir is enhanced and its power is allowed to be
fully felt. In the Dies Irae, the judgment day, a massive storm hits: the terrible voices of the choir
show God’s divine wrath coming to man, followed by attempts to soften this anger, and then
again cries of terror... Everything trembles in angst, fever, and impatience. Mozart’s last
composition achieves a point of sublime excellence.

Requiem
● I. Introitus
● II. Kyrie
● III. Sequentia
a. Dies irae
b. Tuba mirum
c. Rex tremendae
d. Recordare
e. Confutatis
f. Lacrimosa
● IV. Offertorium
a. Domine Jesu
b. Hostias
● Süssmayr's additions