Mozart’s Requiem and
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THE VIRTUES OF FRANZ XAVIER SÜSSMAYR
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The story of how Mozart
came to compose the Requiem has often been told – in fact and in fiction. The
mysterious man in grey who commissioned it from him for a generous fee but
under the condition of secrecy, turned out to be the servant of a Count
Walsegg who intended to claim the work as his own at a memorial service for
his wife. But Mozart only lived to complete the vocal parts and the figured
bass up to the end of the "Hostias" (except for the
"Lacrimosa" after bar 8), the complete orchestration of the
"Introitus," the first violin part of the "Dies irae" and
"Rex tremendae," and otherwise only sparse indications here and
there, such as the trombone solo which opens the "Tuba mirum."
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The various types of
handwriting in the autograph and in the surviving copies indicate who
contributed to the completion of the work. The "Kyrie" seems to have
been filled out during Mozart's lifetime: here the mechanical task of writing
the string parts, which stick to the vocal lines, was performed by his young
pupil Franz Jacob Freystädtler and the slightly more skilled work of writing
the trumpet and timpani parts was done by Franz Xaver Süssmayr.
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After her husband's
death Constanze Mozart asked Joseph Eybler to complete the Requiem. He
finished the orchestration up to the point in the "Lacrimosa" where
Mozart had laid down his pen forever, where it became necessary to compose
rather than just to orchestrate. Eybler wrote two very unconvincing bars of
melody in the soprano part and then gave up the attempt, handing all the
material back to Constanze. On the evidence of an early copy, which preceded
Süssmayr's work, she next approached Maximilian Stadler, who orchestrated the
two movements of the “Offertorium."
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At last she entrusted
the task to Süssmayr. He had been with Mozart for most of 1791, except when
assigned to look after Constanze, when she stayed in Baden
for the sake of her health. He had done various jobs for Mozart, including
copying out the singers' parts for "Die Zauberflöte (the magic
flute)" and probably composing the recitatives for "La clemenza di
Tito." He also later recalled that during the last weeks "he had
often played and sung the completed parts through with Mozart, who had very
often discussed with him the completion of the work and the course of his
instrumentation with his reasons." Constanze later told the publishers
Breitkopf und Härtel that Mozart had instructed Süssmayr to complete the
Requiem, in case he himself would not live to do so, by using the first Fugue
again at the end.
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The real mystery about the
story of the Requiem is – why did Constanze call Süssmayr
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in only as a last
resort, when he had been closest to the dying composer and the only one
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who knew his intentions
for the work? She herself wrote many years later: "The reason I
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gave it to Eybler to
complete was because I was angry with Süssmayr (I do not know why)
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and Mozart had had a
high opinion of Eybler.”
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