Requiem in D minor, K. 626
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
As completed by H.C. Robbins Landon

THE STORY

In 1791, Mozart received an anonymous commission for a Requiem Mass from Austrian aristocrat and amateur composer Count Franz von Walsegg for his deceased wife, Anna, aged 20. However, time was not in his favor. Mozart’s death on December 5 left the Requiem incomplete. In need of the commission’s full payment, Mozart’s widow Constanze rushed to have the liturgical mass completed, first by Joseph Eybler, then by Franz Xaver Süssmayer. Count Walsegg received his completed Requiem in February 1792, but parts had been performed five days after the composer’s death for friends who gathered to pay respects—contrary to popular myth that no witnesses were present at the young prodigy’s funeral.

The account that Mozart tearfully confessed on his deathbed that the Requiem’s composition had been his own personal mass may have been contrived by Constanze to raise the work’s sentimental (and sacred) value. Regardless of such myths, the Mozart Requiem has served for centuries as a monumental symbol of honor incorporated into funeral services for major cultural figures including Haydn, Weber, Beethoven, Schubert, Goethe, Chopin, Rossini, and Berlioz.

LISTEN FOR

• The fugal subject of Mozart’s Kyrie, which is borrowed from the closing chorus of Handel’s “Dettingen” Te Deum
• The flurry of 16th-notes of the Dies irae, expressing impending holy judgment and wrath upon the earth
• The blasting trombone in the Tuba mirum, of which Berlioz once lamented: “Why just one trombone to sound the terrible blast that should echo round the world and raise the dead from the grave?”
• The bright D-major Sanctus; where the hearty fugal chorus proclaims the holy glory filling the earth at the coming of Christ
• The somber polyphony in the final Communio, beseeching God to grant His saints eternal rest 

INSTRUMENTATION

Two basset horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, organ, strings