Review: Mozart's Requiem

Reviewed Work(s): Mozart's Requiem: Historical and Analytical Studies, Documents,

Score by Christoph Wolff
Review by: Tim Jones
Source: Early Music , Aug., 1995, Vol. 23, No. 3, Iberian Discoveries III (Aug., 1995), pp.
502-504
Published by: Oxford University Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3138128

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Rubio's study, is clearly unacceptable 14 years later. In
fact, it leads Capdep6n to some quite amazing conclu-
sions: 'Soler is responsible for the transformation of the
traditional form of the villancico when he combines the
traditional sections (introducci6n, estribillo, coplas) with
other sections of Spanish (seguidillas and tonadillas), Ital-
ian (recitatives and arias) and French (minuets) origin.'
Ever since Ripolls's pioneering study El villancico i la
cantata del segle XVIII a Valencia (1935), it has been well
known that recitatives and arias were incorporated into
the villancico from at least the 1720s. (Surprisingly per-
haps in this light, Ripolls's book is to be found in Capde-
p6n's bibliography.) Furthermore, even a cursory inspec-
tion of the above-mentioned catalogue of villancico texts
reveals that these section-types were in use from the first
decade of the century and had become standard compo-
nents of the villancico by the time Soler wrote his first
contribution to the genre in 1752. Soler was not inno-
vative and original-at least not in this regard-but was
following in well established and widely accepted con-
ventions of the genre.
The book's title would seem to promise at least some
consideration of aspects of liturgical function and perfor-
mance practice of the villancico in El Escorial. But it ap-
pears that Capdep6n's interest is exclusively focused on
the transcription and formal analysis of the music, and
no new documentary information or interpretation is
provided with regard to musical practice at El Escorial.
Although he does make a useful contribution in his com-
parative study of the vocal and instrumental resources
used in the villancicos preserved at El Escorial, all his ref-
erences to performance practice are, somewhat alarm-
ingly, confined to Schering's now outdated Auffiihrungs-
praxis.
The main body of the book is devoted to the textual and
musical forms to be found in the 125 extant villancicos by
Soler. (Capdep6n deliberately excludes the cantadas,
which, according to him, bear no relation to the genre.)
Study of the text basically consists of a comprehensive and
systematic description and classification of various poetic
forms and rhetorical figures, but it is not complemented
by any attempt at interpretation of the data. The same can
be said about his study of musical form; the villancicos are
distributed in four different categories, though his criteria
for selection appear to be based more on statistical than on
historical reasons.
Furthermore, the definition of categories does not take
into account the villancico repertory by other contempo-
rary composers, and, in any case, all comparative refer-
502 EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 1995
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ences are here made to early 17th-century works. Never-
theless, these chapters are of interest to scholars in that
they provide useful information about formal aspects of
Soler's villancicos, though this area cries out for further in-
terpretation.
This book clearly does not represent the last word on
the subject of the villancico in this period. We know no
more as a result of this work about the social context of
the repertory, its performance conventions, its signifi-
cance within the rest of Soler's output (which to all
intents and purposes does not seem to exist for Capde-
p6n) or within the genre in Spain, nor about its musical
worth, since Capdep6n avoids expressing any opinion as
to the value of the music. Regrettably, this kind of book
not only fails to advance our knowledge of the subject,
but could also deter others from its study.
Tim Jones
Mozart's Requiem
Christoph Wolff, Mozart's Requiem: historical and
analytical studies, documents, score, trans. Mary Whittall
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), ?27.50
The fact that the mythic power of the Requiem remains
undimmed after two centuries was amply demonstrated
by some of the more colourful and bizarre products of the
bicentenary celebrations. The Romantic attraction of the
circumstances surrounding the work's genesis is under-
standable enough, and was certainly given a helping hand
by the obfuscation of various participants in the story (no-
tably Constanze Mozart) during the 19th century. Yet, as
Christoph Wolff shows in his cool appraisal of the evid-
ence, all the sources needed to reconstruct the bare bones
of the case were well known by the end of the 183os. With
its level-headed and careful views, this expanded English
version of Wolff's original German (1991) is a welcome ad-
dition to a crowded market.
The book is really about two Requiems: Mozart's frag-
ment, the extent and nature of which has sometimes been
misrepresented in the literature; and Stissmayr's comple-
tion of it, a famous but unsatisfactory hybrid that might be
called 'Mozart's' Requiem. Wolff's first chapter is largely
about the relationship between these two pieces. The
strength of his discussion is largely due to the detailed con-
nections he makes between the primary sources and the
early reception history of 'Mozart's' Requiem. He gives a
lucid account of the events of 1791-2 insofar as they can be
reconstructed from the surviving sources. His view of the
controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Requiem
in the 1820s and 30s is sympathetic to Mozart's circle. He
attributes their economy with the truth to a wholesome
desire to preserve Mozart's posthumous reputation. Some
readers may wish to take a more sceptical view of docu-
ments which reported events long after they had occurred,
but Wolff's narrative is balanced and judicious.
Wolff is no less fastidious in his dealings with the
musical sources. The complex structure of the two vol-
umes of autograph score in the National Library of Aus-
tria is untangled with admirable clarity. The contribu-
tions to the completion made by Freystadtler, Eybler and
Stadler are considered, and the ineptitude of Stissmayr's
orchestration laid bare, before Wolff gets to the crux of
the Requiem's stylistic problems. Do Sissmayr's Sanctus,
Benedictus and Agnus Dei reflect Mozart's plans? In
common with much recent scholarly opinion, Wolff
believes that the vocal lines of these movements are based
on authentic material but that they are imperfectly real-
ized. Clearly SUissmayr did not have the technical experi-
ence to complete Mozart's surviving fugal 'Amen' frag-
ment. His completion of the D major concerto rondo for
horn and orchestra, K514, is analysed in detail to show
that he was perfectly capable of misunderstanding
Mozart's less challenging formal plans, yet still able to
integrate them with his own ideas. Wolff describes the
outcome as 'a unique and curious mixture of amazingly
good ideas and the less successful execution or develop-
ment of those ideas' amounting to a 'far from homoge-
neous score' (p.42). Given the nature of Wolff's analysis it
is not surprising that he rejects Richard Maunder's radi-
cal solution to the problems. But some might find his
conclusions rather cautious. While acknowledging the
need to revise Sissmayr's orchestration, he defends the
continued use of his score, suggesting that 'to the atten-
tive listener ... [it] offers an aesthetic dimension that no
later edition can match, not least on account of its his-
tory' (p.52). The appeal to tradition is a telling one here,
for Mozart's Requiem has virtually no reception history,
while 'Mozart's' Requiem has a long and mostly distin-
guished one. Ultimately, the appeal of Stissmayr's com-
pletion is nostalgic, and Wolff beautifully captures its
status as a cultural symbol when he writes that 'this score
is unique in representing and embodying in its physical
fabric the original and essential musical truth of the
unfinished work. In its often abrupt opposition and
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imperfect union of the finished and the unfinished, it
draws us spellbound into the situation of the last days of
1791' (P-53). However, on technical grounds it seems
unduly generous to grant Sfissmayr's work such unchal-
lenged authority. Modern completions may not have
benefited from access to Mozart's sketches, but scholars
such as Richard Maunder and Robert Levin surely have a
more profound understanding of Mozart's late style
and-if Wolff's hypothesis about the timetable of SUiss-
mayr's completion is correct-they had more time to for-
mulate the details of their work.
In his second chapter Wolff analyses Mozart's authen-
ticated contributions to the Requiem, and discusses poss-
ible sources for their style. He argues convincingly that
Mozart used the commission as an opportunity to create
a new type of liturgical music. In an elevated and pathetic
tone he synthesized his usual harmonic-periodic classical
style with overtly Baroque gestures and a motet style of
text setting. The primarily vocal conception of Mozart's
fragment carries obvious implications for the relationship
between the textual and musical structures. Wolff is par-
ticularly good on the broader aspects of design in
Mozart's setting of the 'Requiem aeternam' and 'Domine
Jesu Christe'. At the opposite end of the spectrum
The (-Music of
Jean-Baptiste Cully
Facsimile: [Armide] Ouverture, Chaconne &
Tous les autres Airs a jouer de l'Opera de
l'Armide [Amsterdam, c. 1710].
Performers' Facsimiles 113.
4part-books ?25.00
Modern Edition: The Collected Works,
Series III: The Sacred Works, Vol. 5: Quare
fremuerunt gentes; Notus in Judaea Deus;
Exaudiat te Dominus. available Fall 1995
Reference Work: The Livrets of Jean-Baptiste
Lully's Tragddies Lyriques: A Catalogue
Raisonnd. Compiled by Carl B. Schmidt.
?125.00
BROUDE BROTHERS LIMITED
141 WHITE OAKS ROAD
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA O1267 USA
EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 1995 503
Mozart's strategic use of different fugal types is percep- Austrian contemporaries. Readers will have to turn to
tively examined. Despite the doubts recently expressed by Richard Maunder's Mozart's Requiem: on preparing a new
Thomas Baumann ('Requiem but no piece', Nineteenth- edition (Oxford, 1988) and Edward J. Dent's 'The forerun-
century music, xv (1991), pp.151-61) the place of an 'Amen' ners of Mozart's Requiem', Monthly musical record, xxxvii
fugue in Mozart's conception of the Sequence seems (1907), pp.124-6, 148-50, to fill some of the gaps. It is curi-
entirely plausible in Wolff's reading. He also touches ous that, having demonstrated the score's strong Han-
upon aspects of cyclic integration. The recurrence of delian features, Wolff then suggests that the pre-eminent
motives in the Requiem has often been noted, so it is dis- spirit behind the music is J. S. Bach's. As evidence he cites
appointing that he does not emulate recent studies of the instances of strict contrapuntal elaboration in the 'Rex
classical cyclicism by investigating in more detail other tremendae', 'Recordare', 'Confutatis' and 'Domine Jesu'
types of through-composition: large-scale gestural rhyme, (p.84). However impressive these are, they hardly furnish
lack of firm endings and run-on pairs of movements. The concrete proof of Bach's influence. Is it so inconceivable,
lack of penetrating analytical detail in the chapter as a given the motivic-contrapuntal concerns of his music
whole might be regarded as problematic. Wolff's com- since at least 1788, that such technical rigour might be
ment that 'the Requiem's harmonic design ... is more authentically Mozartian?
original, more independent of precedent, and altogether The last two chapters, which make up over half the
newer than anything else in the work' (p.96) seems to be book, are documentary. Thirty-seven documents men-
a sound assertion. But it is hard to demonstrate, and our tioned in Wolff's account of the Requiem's early history
confidence may be undermined when he occasionally are included in chapter 3. While most of these have previ-
runs into theoretical difficulties trying to illustrate the ously appeared in English, many are given here in good
point. For example: the analysis of the 'Hostias' (p.99) new translations; this is a useful appendix to chapter 1. The
ascribes tonic functions to chords which actually form utility of presenting Mozart's fragment and the vocal lines
cadential progressions within other underlying tonics; the of Sissmayr's completion in chapter 4 is not so obvious. It
'Hostias' is described inaccurately (p.102: bar 34 contains reprints Leopold Nowack's Neue Mozart-Ausgabe score
a C major chord, not minor); his analysis of the enhar- (1964-5) without Freystadtler's orchestration in the Kyrie
monic progressions at the end of the 'Confutatis' (p.102) and with the original editorial movement headings
misses much of the subtlety in Mozart's voice-leading replaced by Mozart's own. It illustrates the primacy of the
(the annotations to ex. 11.12 are particularly unsympa- vocal element in Mozart's conception, though, given the
thetic: they hardly reflect the cadential structure of the book's price, readers who already own a vocal or pocket
bass, and consequently the allusion to F# minor (bars score might consider it a superfluous luxury.
34-5) is missed). Similarly, the often criticized bass C The book is beautifully produced. However, it is a pity
natural in Stssmayr's Sanctus hardly gives rise to 'the that a few minor inconsistencies and inaccuracies were not
clash of A- and C-major chords' which Wolff finds 'crude expunged during the process of revision. Faure's Requiem
and unMozartian' (p.38). It is more likely that the C ends with an 'In paradisum', not a 'Libera me' (p.70). The
supports an implied third-inversion seventh chord. In supposed model for the subject of Mozart's Kyrie fugue is
this context it would be an acceptable passing chord, and
not from Handel's Dettingen Te Deum (pp.78-9), but
no less Mozartian than the progression in bars 26-7 of the from the anthem that was sung with it in 1743, The King
'Hostias'.
shall rejoice. The translation is excellent, but a few snags
Wolff is surely right to suggest that Mozart consciouslyremain. It is not clear that 'homophonous' (p.90 passim)
fashioned the Requiem within a specific musico-liturgicalis a synonym of 'homophonic'. On pp.2-3 the references
tradition. The striking similarities between Mozart's in-to Volkmar Braunbehrens's monograph are confusing:
troit and the opening chorus of Handel's Funeral Anthemthe first is to the original Mozart in Wien, the second to
for Queen Caroline, The ways of Zion do mourn (1737) are Timothy Bell's translation Mozart in Vienna, which has a
discussed in detail. Mozart's debt to the textural variety ofdifferent pagination. The problematic analytical example
Handel's choral writing is also acknowledged. But there is on p.102 is annotated in German.
only a cursory summary of other possible sources of inspi- The overall impression created by this book is rather
ration (if not actual thematic material). Frustratingly,like that of the 'Mozart' Requiem itself. Despite its un-
Wolff does not present a more detailed survey of linksdoubted excellence, with strong ideas, it does not quite
between the Requiem and the liturgical music of Mozart'smake a completely satisfying experience.

504 EARLY MUSIC AUGUST 1995

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