Mozart Requiem Macro Viva Fireside video
Composition
Mystery and intrigue have shrouded Mozart’s Requiem since the composer’s death on December 5, 1791. There is the puzzle of the “Grey Messenger” who delivered the commission to Mozart, the anonymity of the commissioner, the promise of a significant payment, the contractual agreement that the work become the exclusive property of the commissioner and that the composer remain unknown, and the stirrings of superstition roused within Mozart at the request to write a mass for the dead.
About fifty miles southwest of Vienna, in Stuppach, the beautiful Countess Anna von Walsegg had died on February 14. She was twenty-one. Her grieving husband, Count Franz von Walsegg, commissioned two works to commemorate her: a marble-and-granite monument from the renowned sculptor Johann Martin Fischer, and a musical setting of the Roman Catholic mass for the dead from Mozart. For the monument, von Walsegg paid 3,000 florins, and for the Requiem, 225 florins. Some two hundred years later, the monument no longer exists, but the Requiem setting remains a cornerstone of Western classical music. What we now know is that von Walsegg wanted the work written anonymously to satisfy a curious predilection of his own. Himself an amateur musician, he had commissioned works from several composers under the same conditions as the Requiem. He would then copy these in his own hand and pass them off as his own compositions at private performances.
Mozart received the commission during the summer of 1791. It was as much as he might be paid for an entire opera, and he received a down payment of half at the outset. Mozart accepted the commission eagerly, and not just for the financial reward. In his Salzburg days, he had written a prodigious amount of sacred music; in Vienna, he had written almost none. He had been preoccupied with the Viennese taste for opera and with concerti for his own public performances. But also, he had been discouraged for some time by the strictures imposed on the composition of sacred music by the ruling emperor. Now, under the more liberal Joseph II, the strictures had been lifted.Mozart had recently accepted the unpaid position of assistant Kapellmeister at St. Stephen’s, in the hope that the elderly and ailing Kapellmeister would soon be indisposed and that he, Mozart, would then gain a secure and paid position. So when the commission for the Requiem came, he saw it as an opportunity, under the new freedoms allowed sacred music, and unfettered by any strictures of expressivity, to prove himself a composer worthy of the office at the most important cathedral in Vienna.
Mozart was busy completing The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito when he accepted the requiem commission. It is thought that he began to sketch ideas for the Requiem during the summer, but he soon left for Prague to launch Il Clemenza. Franz Xavier Süssmayr, Mozart’s young student and assistant, accompanied him to help meet deadlines by working on score realizations and production of orchestral parts.
Mozart turned his full attention to the Requiem commission on his return to Vienna in early November. But very soon, he fell ill. At times he became fretful that fate was at work against him. He is said to have feared he was writing his own requiem. Constanze, his wife, took the score away from him on occasion so he might have some relief from his despair. But though he grew more ill, he worked on the Requiem steadily for some weeks on his sickbed.
On December 4, friends gathered around his bedside to sing parts of the Requiem for him. It is said he turned his face to the wall and wept. The last notes he wrote were the first eight measures of the Lacrymosa movement. He remained lucid until just a few hours before his death in the early hours of December 5, 1791. Constanze, beside herself with despair, was in the next room. Her sister Sophie was with Mozart when he died; she reported that in his last hours he was mouthing parts of the Requiem.
A funeral service was held on December 10 at St. Michael’s Church. Two movements of the Requiem were performed: the completed Introitus: Requiem and the Kyrie. It seems that Süssmayr finished the colle parte (orchestral parts doubling vocal parts) scoring of the Kyrie in time for the funeral service.The completion of the full Requiem is another story. Within days of Mozart’s death, Constanze approached several young composers to finish the work, and finally Süssmayr completed the piece. Several movements combine Mozart’s thematic and harmonic material with Süssmayr’s orchestrations; some are Süssmayr’s own.
Had it not been for Constanze’s actions, the Requiem might have been lost forever. Süssmayr died twelve years after Mozart, ever silent about his illicit completion of the work. The score in von Walsegg’s library lay unrecognized after Mozart’s death, and the count, if true to his colors, might well have tried to claim the Requiem as his own. But Constanze made the musical world a great gift: she had two copies made before sending the score to von Walsegg, and it is one of these that was sent to the publishing house of Breitkopf & Härtel, who published it in 1800. It was Constanze’s prescience that granted Mozart’s Requiem immortality.
In the Requiem, Mozart’s life and his music coalesce more than in any other work he wrote. The coincidence of Mozart’s own illness and imminent death with the commission of a mass for the dead offers much fertile interconnection and makes the Requiem his most deeply personal statement.
There are several completions of the Requiem; we have chosen to perform Süssmayr’s completion. We sing an Austro-Germanic pronunciation of the Latin text, as Mozart would probably have conceived it.
Structure and Content
The Requiem’s overall structure is symmetrical. It is comprised of fifteen movements, some of which segue from one to the next. The first and second movements are repeated, with differing text, as the fourteenth and fifteenth. The overall form of the piece is an arc, with the seventh movement, the Lacrymosa (“Tearful”), as the central point of the work, structurally, and also at the emotional heart of the piece. The first eight measures of the Lacrymosa are the last notes Mozart ever wrote. Several sections of movements are repeated, Quam Olim Abrahae and Osanna, giving the listener architectural anchorage. The mood of the movements ranges from the tragedy of the Lacrymosa to the terror of the Dies irae (“Day of Wrath”) to the awesome majesty of the Rex tremendae.
There are three movements for the quartet of soloists, interpolated between the choral movements: Tuba mirum, Recordare, and Benedictus. These sound as though they have come straight from the opera stage: the varied interactions back and forth between soloists, in duet, in trio, in quartet, capture the very human drama of Figaro, or Giovanni, or Flute: sweet, insistent; docile, assertive; unsure, convinced . . . Mozart was a master at capturing the essence of human contradiction. All the other twelve movements are for choir and orchestra, with a small section for soloists in the Domine Jesu.
The signature key of the Requiem is D minor, the key of tragedy. The piece opens and closes in this key, and seven of its movements are all in D minor. The other eight movements are split equally between minors other than D minor and major keys: G minor is used three times, A minor once. The major keys are B flat (twice), F, and D.
Several movements are cast as fugues, a style old-fashioned in Mozart’s day: one voice enters, followed by a second with the same subject or a counter-subject, followed by another and another. Mozart’s genius lies in his choice of this fusty, old-fashioned form for his most effervescent music: the Kyrie at the beginning and its echo, the Cum sanctis, at the end; the clashing struggles of the damned in the Confutatis; Quam olim Abrahae, where the fugal layers suggest multiple generations; the two Osannas, bubbling with exuberant, overlapping cries of praise; and part of the Domine Jesu: ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum, “let hell not swallow them (the souls of all the faithful departed) and let them not fall into darkness.”
The music of the Requiem is classical in its crafting, yet romantic in expression. It is a Classical piece that looks back to the counterpoint and even melodic material of the Baroque giants, Bach and Handel, and forward to an era of unbuttoned expression of the Romantic composers; Beethoven called it “wild and terrible.” Majestic and intimate, universal and personal, powerful and tender, poignant and passionate, the Requiem conveys pathos and hope, fear and faith, and an awesome wonder at and closeness to the Almighty.
1. Provenance and Precedents
a. The Requiem Mass, conceived in the Late Medieval Era, changed over the centuries.
b. Mozart used Michael Haydn’s Requiem for the Archbishop of Salzburg. Both Leopold and Wolfgang Mozart took part in the first Church service performance of the Requiem. When he began to conceive his Requiem, years later, Mozart used Michael Haydn’s Requiem as a model, in structure, texture, and motif.
c. Mozart had studied the music of Handel, having access to it in the library of Baron von Swieten. He used almost exact copies of Handel melodic motifs for the first and second subjects of his Kyrie, and other motifs from various works of Handel.
2. The Requiem in the context of Mozart’s Personal and Compositional Life
· In Salzburg, Mozart had written church music while in the service on Archbishop Colorado.
· In Vienna, his attention was mostly on secular music—mainly Opera. But in 1791, the year of his death, he was looking forward to taking up the unpaid position of Kapellmeister at St Stephen’s Cathedral. For this, a Requiem Mass Mozart thought would be a good asset in his compositional portfolio. Thus, he welcomed the anonymous commission of the work, for both financial and for professional reasons.
· Mozart was a Freemason. In 1791, just before writing the Requiem he was asked to write music for his Masonic Lodge. The Masonic cantata he wrote in the late summer-early fall of 19791 uses basset horns, darker and reedier relatives of the clarinet, that he used again in the Requiem. There are other timbral similarities between this late Masonic Cantata and the Requiem.
3. Sacred Music
Mozart had in mind sacred music for a church service, in which, between the musical movements, liturgical portions would be intoned or spoken. Ironically, the Requiem
4. Styles within the Requiem
· Looks back to the Baroque contrapuntal and fugal writing.
· And presages the Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) A style of mostly in German music of the Romantic era that communicates fear, horror, anxiety.
· Mozart is a true Classicist: His writing is in The Classic Style—transparent, orderly, and uses an economy of means with which he packs a punch.
5. Macro View
Arc shape:
Two pillars — Requiem and Kyrie & Lux Aeterna & Cum Sanctis
Apex (central)—Lacrymosa
6. Movements (musical) and Requiem Mass sections (liturgy)
· Some liturgical sections are eponymous with musical movements.
I. Introitus
1. Requiem aeternam (chorus with soprano solo, 48 mm)
II. 2. Kyrie (chorus, 52 bars)
III. Sequenz
3. Dies irae (chorus, 68 mm)
4. Tuba Mirum (solo, 62 mm)
5. Rex tremendae (chorus, G minor, 22 mm)
6. Recordare (130 mm)
7. Confutatis (chorus, A minor, 40 mm)
8. Lacrymosa (chorus, D minor, 30 mm)
IV. Offertorium
9. Domine Jesu including Quam Olim Abrahae 1 (chorus with quartet, G minor, 78 mm)
10. Hostias including Quam Olim Abrahae 2 (chorus, E♭ major, 89 mm)
V. 11. Sanctus including Osana 1(chorus, D major, 38 mm)
VI. 12. Benedictus/Benedictus including Osanna 2 (chorus with quartet, B♭ major, 76 mm)
VII. 13. Agnus Dei (chorus, D minor, 51 mm)
VIII. Communio
14. Lux aeterna (30 mm)
15. Cum Sanctis (52 mm
(chorus with soprano, B♭ major-D minor, 82 mm)
Number of measures taken from Süssmayer completion
7. Movement durations
· Shortest but grandest: Rex Tremendae 22 mm
· Longest: Recordare 130 mm
8. Who sings what where
· Choir movements: Requiem, Kyrie, Dies Irae, Rex Tremendae, Confutatis, Lacrymosa, Hostias (and Quam Olim Abrahae), Sanctus (and Osanna), Agnus Dei, Lux Aeterna, Cum Sanctis
· Solo movements: Tuba Mirum, Recordare, Benedictus
· Movements that have both choir and soloists: Requiem with Sop Solo “Te Decet” m 21, Domine Jesu with solo quartet starting at pickup to m 33, Sed Signifer Michael…) and choral “Quam Olim Abrahae,” Benedictus with choral Osanna at 54, Lux Aeterna with Sop Solo at opening, m 3
9. Orchestra
· Orchestration:
o Woodwinds: 2 bassett horns, 2 bassoons,
o Brass: 3 trombones—alto, tenor, bass, and 2 trumpets
o Timpani
o 4 part strings: violins I and II, viola, cello, bass
o Continuo (organ and cello/bass)
· There are no purely orchestral movements.
· But there are eloquent orchestral introductions that foretell what is to come as in opening Requiem and expressive codas to some movements (for instance, the tumultuous coda to Dies Irae.
· Aside from these introductions and codas, the orchestra is often colle voce with the choir or with the soloists.
· Sometimes, as in Mozart Operas, the orchestra and singers are in conversation. Sometimes the orchestra comments on what the voices are singing while they are singing.
10. Soloists
Soprano, mezzo, tenor, and bass, and trombone (in Tuba Mirum)
11. Repetitions
· Opening Requiem and Kyrie are repeated at the end as Lux Aeterna (m 19 of the Requiem movement) and Cum Sanctis. The music is identical, only the text changes.
· Quam Olim Abrahae fugue. Two identical appearances that close Domine Jesu and Hostias.
· Osannas at the closings of Benedictus and Sanctus (different from each other in key—D major and B flat, order of entering voices—BTASBS and TASBT, and number of measures)
12. Texture
· Movements whose texture is completely fugal
i. Kyrie and Cum Sanctis
· Movements that are largely or completely homophonic
i. Dies Irae
ii. Tuba Mirum
iii. Lacyrmosa
iv. Agnus Dei
· Movements that have both homophony (chordal writing) and polyphony.
i. Requiem
ii. Rex Tremendae triple canon starting m 7/2 and again m 12/2
iii. Recordare
iv. Confutatis Bass and Tenor fugato, S&A chordal m 7, m 17, SATB m 26-end
v. Domine Jesu with “Ne absorbeat as tartarus” fugato m 21, M, and Sed signiffer sanctus Michale , pick up to m 33, and Quam Olim m 44, O
vi. Hostias and Quam Olim
vii. Sanctus and Osanna
viii. Benedictus and Osanna
ix. Lux Aeterna
13. Key
· The work overall is cast in the mode of D minor.
· Mozart uses the key relationships of the Circle of Fifths:
· E flat major—B flat major —F major—C major
g minor—d minor—a minor
Tonic Major: D major
· 10 movements are in minor keys: D minor, G minor, A minor; 5 are in major
· D minor for 7 movements: Requiem, Kyrie, Dies Irae, Lacrymosa, Agnus Dei, Lux Aeterna, Cum Sanctis
· The even darker g minor for two: Rex Tremendae and Domine Jesu (and Quam Olim Abrahae closing section) as well as the Quam Olim finale of Hostias (which is in E flat major)
· Arc structure: we’ve mentioned the opening two movements, Requiem and Kyrie return as the closing two movements, Lux Aeterna (m 19 of the Requiem movement) and Cum Sanctis both pairs of movements in D minor. The middle movement, the Lacrymosa is also in D minor.
· Within movements, there are wonder-filled, dramatic, scary, awe-inspiring modulations.
14. Tempi
Adagio to Allegro Assai
15. Dynamics
pp – ff, sforzandi, cresc and dimin
16. Articulations
Legato and lyrical (opening of Requiem) to Baroque style detached (Kyrie)
17. Meter and Rhythms
Movements/Sections | 14 movements (in 8 liturgical sections): I. Introitus Requiem aeternam (chorus with soprano solo, 48 bars) II. Kyrie (chorus, 52 bars) III. Sequenz 1. Dies irae (chorus, 68 bars) 2. Tuba mirum (solo quartet, B♭ major, 62 bars) 3. Rex tremendae (chorus, G minor, 22 bars) 4. Recordare (solo quartet, F major, 130 bars) 5. Confutatis (chorus, A minor, 40 bars) 6. Lacrymosa (chorus, D minor, 30 bars) IV. Offertorium 1. Domine Jesu (chorus with quartet, G minor, 78 bars) 2. Hostias (chorus, E♭ major, 89 bars) V. Sanctus (chorus, D major, 38 bars) VI. Benedictus (chorus with quartet, B♭ major, 76 bars) VII. Agnus Dei (chorus, D minor, 51 bars) VIII. Communio Lux aeterna (chorus with soprano, B♭ major-D minor, 82 bars) *Number of measures taken from Süssmayer completion |
Year/Date of Composition | 1791 |
First Performance | 1791-12-10 (Introitus, Kyrie only) in Vienna, St. Michael's Church Staff of Theater auf der Wieden (Mozart's memorial service) 1793-01-02 (complete) in Vienna Benefit for Constanze Mozart |
First Publication | 1800 (score); 1812 (parts)
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