Thursday, February 28, 2013, 8 p.m.
not only with the question of what might have been in his future creative output, but, specifically, with what might have happened in this work had he survived to complete it. The Requiem was anonymously commissioned by the patron Count Franz Walsegg-Stuppach as a memorial to his late wife. Although still in good health during the summer of 1791, Mozart seems to have reacted to this commission as a harbinger of his own death; while working on it, he was often depressed and told his wife, Constanze, that he felt that he was writing his own requiem. He also found plenty of excuses to set the work aside: first to fulfill a commission from Prague for the opera La Clemenza di Tito, then to write the great Clarinet Concerto for his friend Anton Stadler, next to put the finishing touches on his comic opera Die Zauberflöte, and finally, to write and premiere the Kleine Freymaurer Kantate, K. 623. Mozart/Haydn scholar H. C.
Robbins Landon estimates that Mozart worked intermittently on the Requiem from Oct. 8 to Nov. 20, when he took to his bed with his fatal illness. As he lay dying, Mozart worked closely with his two students Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Mozart managed to finish composing all the vocal parts, the figured bass that controlled the harmony, most of the first violin parts and the trombone solo for Tuba Mirum, up to the Sanctus. Under his direction, the full scoring for the opening Introitus and Kyrie was done. After the composer’s death Constanze Mozart turned the score over to Süssmayr, who finished the Lacrimosa and the orchestration for the other sections and composed from scratch the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei movements. Süssmayr’s additions aside, Mozart himself finished enough of the Requiem to make it a worthy valedictory to his genius. The opening Introitus has a halting, ominous quality with its slow,
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aspirated figures for the strings and the prominence given the low winds. A mood of resignation and acceptance comes with the soprano’s gentle “Te decet hymnus,” accompanied by a strings melody of radiant sweetness. Mozart follows with a dazzling double fugue for the Kyrie that counteracts the gravity of the Introitus. Constanze Mozart claimed that her husband had instructed Süssmayr to bring back the Introitus and Kyrie music for the Requiem’s final movement, the Communio. Süssmayr, for his part, said that had been his own idea. Though bringing the opening music back at the end gives a nice symmetry and was a common practice in Mozart’s day, one wonders if Mozart would have chosen to use the same music for the very different words of the Communio. Instrumentation: Two basset horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, organ and strings. Notes by Janet E. Bedell copyright 2013 SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
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