Notes © Shulamit Hoffmann 2024
In 2021, on the 230th anniversary of Mozart's death, the illustrious Mozarteum in Salzburg published a cartoon rendition of The story of the Requiem.
Mozart had received a commission to compose a Requiem Mass in the summer of 1791. The messenger who presented the commission was mysterious and the commission was anonymous, but Mozart was keen. The downpayment was a goodly sum, and, as Mozart was about to assume the position of Kapellmeister at St Stephen's Cathedral, he considered a Requiem Mass an excellent addition to the sacred works in his compositional portfolio.
Mozart and his father had participated in a musical Requiem Mass that Michael Haydn had composed on the death of the Archbishop of Salzburg. You can listen to Haydn the Younger's Mass here https://youtu.be/EUKFK2ezoCQ?si=jstFKTsvEfYnPjIq. And you can peruse the score here
And read program notes from The Boston Baroque here https://baroque.boston/haydn-requiem. Mozart used the same liturgical texts for his Requiem that Haydn adopted, incorporated some of the musical motifs of Haydn the Younger (the opening orchestral bass and upper strings walking motif, for one), adopted similar orchestration—trumpets and three trombones, and set the "Te decet" text for soprano solo, as Haydn had.
Mozart also had access to the scores of Handel in the library of Baron von Swieten, and, much taken with Handelian themes and counterpoint, he included both in his Requiem (in the "Requiem Aeternam" and the "Kyrie").
Mozart, not a stranger to philosophizing about life, had contemplated death, and, some years prior, had written to his father saying he anticipated that he would feel comfort in death.
After he had received the commission, however, Mozart was pre-occupied, composing and supervising (and even conducting one of) the premieres of TWO operas: The Magic Flute in Vienna, and La Clemenza di Tito in Prague to celebrate the coronation of the new Emperor. Both operas were stunning successes, received by enthusiastic audiences . At last Mozart had unmitigated acclaim and recognition of his genius. He was at the peak of his career, and he returned home to Vienna from his stay in Prague triumphant.
On his return, he composed a Cantata at the request of his Masonic Lodge. And then he turned in earnest to his Requiem, picking up sketches he had made in the summer when he first received the commission. But Mozart was overworked, and exhausted. So much so that he took to his bed on November 20, 1791, as he had done so many times in his life, believing bedrest would allow his recuperation. Even in bed, he worked on the Requiem.
But this time, he was not able to rebound, and he grew more and more ill. His hands and feet swelled so badly that he could no longer get out of bed and then could not move in bed. He did not wear the beautiful quilted dressing gown his mother-in-law had made for him to encourage him to get better. Illness overtaking him, he said to Constanza, his wife, that he feared he was writing the Requiem for himself.
On the afternoon of December 4th, a quartet of friends gathered around his sick bed to sing through what was written of the Requiem. The friends departed, and, turning his head to the wall, Mozart appeared to be mouthing the Lacyrmosa. In the evening, a doctor and a priest were summoned. The doctor hastened Mozart's diminishing strength by ordering cold compresses to his forehead, which Sophie, his sister-in-law, reluctantly applied. He lost consciousness. It appears that he might have had a massive stroke. He died around 1:00 a.m. on December 5th, 1791.
The first 8 measures of the Lacrymosa movement are the last notes of Requiem score in Mozart’s own hand, both literally—the score on the sickbed—and in his own handwriting. His extant sketches for some of the movements that followed the Lacrymosa may have formed the basis for the movements that his student, Franz Xavier Sussmayr completed, but it was the Lacrymosa, the seventh and textually, poetically central movement of the fifteen movements of the Requiem, that Mozart was writing just hours before he died.
In Mozart's autograph score, the blank staves that follow the first eight measures of Lacrymosa ("Tearful") are so empty of notes and so filled with the sobbing sadness of the little music that precede the emptiness.
A pdf of the complete autograph score can be found at https://www.vivalamusica.org/singer-resources
After too many undeserved career struggles, Mozart died when he was, at last, at the peak of his career, with much to look forward to. He was thirty five years old, and had written over 600 works.
The first two movements of the Requiem, the only two with all orchestra, choir, and solo parts fully written by Mozart, the "Requiem Aeternam" and the "Kyrie," were performed at a Requiem Mass for Mozart at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna a few weeks after his death.
No other work in the choral-orchestral canon is so closely associated with the composer’s personal circumstances as the Mozart Requiem, and none with such tragic circumstances. As if this glorious, profound, and affective music were not on its own moving enough, the association of the music with his death gives every performance of the Requiem such poignance. 😥
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