Requiem in D Minor, K. 626
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
As completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr

THE STORY

In the summer of 1791, Mozart received an anonymous commission for a Requiem Mass. The request came from Count von Walsegg for his deceased wife, Anna, aged twenty, and included an offer of approximately 50 gold ducats. Mozart accepted the commission, although with several other projects at hand (Die Zauberflöte, La clemenza di Tito, and the Clarinet Concerto, among others), he most likely began work in September or October.

Time was not in his favor, however. Amid rising fame and the demand for concerts, as well as the aforementioned projects, Mozart’s death on December 5 left the Requiem incomplete. In need of the commission’s full payment, Constanze, Mozart’s wife, rushed to have the mass completed, first by Joseph Eybler, then by Franz Xaver Süssmayer. At that point, Mozart had only completed the Introit in full score. The vocal parts and some instrumental passages of the Kyrie, Sequentia, and Offertorium were only partially notated. Eybler added strings to the Tuba mirum, Rex tremendae, and Recordare. He also orchestrated the Dies irae and Confutatis. The remaining parts of the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei were given to Süssmayer, who also appended a reprise of Mozart’s Introit and Kyrie for the closing Communio.

While Count Walsegg received his completed Requiem in February 1792, parts of the work were performed in advance for the deceased composer himself. Five days after Mozart’s death, various sections were heard at St. Michael’s in Vienna, where a small gathering of friends gathered to pay respects, contrary to popular myth that no witnesses were present at the young prodigy’s funeral. 

Indeed, popular anecdotes surrounding Mozart’s death began circulating immediately after his death. The account that Mozart tearfully confessed on his deathbed that the Requiem’s composition had been his own personal, liturgical mass may have been contrived by Constanze to raise the work’s sentimental (and sacred) value. Such myths (and later controversies), however, have not prevented the Requiem’s musical merits from serving as a monumental symbol of honor. The work has been incorporated into a number of funeral services including those of Haydn, Weber, Beethoven, and Schubert.

LISTEN FOR

• The fugal subject of Mozart’s Kyrie 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?”
• Dotted rhythms of the Rex tremendae exuding a regal tone
• The bright D-Major Sanctus; the hearty fugal chorus proclaiming the holy glory filling the earth at the coming of Christ
• The somber polyphony in the final Lux aeterna, beseeching God to grant His saints eternal rest 

INSTRUMENTATION

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

Notes on the music by Joanna Chang