Mozart’s requiem, unfinished at his death, is a significant addition to the genre, and is his most widely performed sacred work, despite its incompleteness. The elaborate requiem of Cherubini, written in 1817 for the commemoration of the execution of Louis XVI during the French Revolution, was conceived on a scale which anticipated the later nineteenth-century requiems of Berlioz and Verdi which were to follow. More modest nineteenth-century settings were also made by Liszt, Bruckner, Saint-Saëns and Fauré. Other notable twentieth-century contributors to the genre include Duruflé, Karg-Elert, Lutosławski and Ligeti. Of these, Duruflé’s is the only one to have sustained a place in popular mainstream repertoire, probably because it is similar to Fauré’s popular composition, but, with its inherent lyricism, is more tuneful, relying hugely as it does on the original plainsong melodies, and harmonically and rhythmically more exciting than its contemporaries. Other composers, notably Brahms with his German Requiem, and Britten with his War Requiem, have flirted with the genre, but have ended up writing works which are not liturgical, as both either exclude some of the original text (in Brahms’ case all of it, in preference to Lutheran biblical quotations from the psalms and gospels) or include other text (in Britten’s case secular text from the war poet Wilfred Owen). Penderecki’s requiem of 1970, dedicated to the trade union leader  Lech Wałęsa, and written for the unveiling of a statue at the Gdańsk shipyards to commemorate those killed in the Polish anti-government riots, also contains secular text and a Polish hymn.

Mozart’s Early Years In Salzburg

Through the late 1760s Mozart, still only about ten years old and living in Salzburg where his father was a violinist in the court, undertook numerous lengthy concert tours, travelling in the family carriage to (what is today) Bratislava, Paris, London, the Hague, Munich, Vienna, Milan, Bologna, Rome, Naples and Venice, returning to Salzburg briefly in between these trips. Usually travelling with his father Leopold, these tours are well documented as Leopold was a prolific correspondent and diarist. In 1769, aged just 13, Mozart was appointed as the chief violinist and third concert master of the court orchestra in Salzburg – a position more senior than that of his father! In 1772 he was promoted to Principal Concert Master by the Prince Archbishop of Salzburg on a salary of 150 Guilders. Through the early 1770s he undertook further tours across Europe, mostly to premier new works (operas in particular), and in 1777 undertook a 16 month tour with his mother to western Europe. During this tour his mother contracted typhoid in Paris, where she was buried, leaving Mozart to return home alone. In 1779 he returned to Salzburg, reluctantly and at his father’s insistence, to accept a position as court organist on a salary of 450 guilders. The archbishop was reluctant to allow him extensive leave for touring with new compositions, or working on new commissions, and Mozart was frustrated in Salzburg, having seen the opportunities open to him in much larger cities where artistic creativity and wealth were so much more prolific. The next two years were quietly spent in Salzburg fulfilling court duties, whilst privately longing to be out on the road again, away from the stuffy and limiting atmosphere of provincial Salzburg. This dissatisfaction came to a head in 1781 when Mozart asked to be released from the Archbishop’s service. At first this request was refused, but eventually, after further episodes of disharmony between Mozart and his employer, he was released “…..with a kick on my arse” as he writes in a letter of 1781.  

The Context Of Mozart’s Requiem

Since its conception there has been much speculation and supposition surrounding the circumstances of the composition of Mozart’s requiem. He did not complete it, as ill health and exhaustion from a lifestyle of excess caused his death precisely at the end of bar 8 of the Lacrimosa. The work was an anonymous commission, the commissioner stipulating, somewhat peculiarly, that the composer should attempt to discover neither the occasion for its performance nor his patron’s identity. It is thought that the person behind this was Count Fraser von Walsegg (1765-1827), an eccentric aristocrat who lived in Stuppach Castle near Gloggnitz (Austria) and who had a habit of commissioning works by other people and passing them off as his own. It is thought that the work was to be for the first anniversary of the death of his wife on February 14th 1792. The commission must have been important to Mozart; he was in debt, in poor health, and in need of medicines which were expensive. Jospeh Eybler (1765-1846), a composition student who had helped Mozart with the rehearsals for Cosi fan Tutti was asked by Mozart’s widow (Konstanza) to complete the unfinished work, presumably so that the commission money could be claimed. Eybler declined the request and later went on to succeed Antonio Salieri as court composer to Josef II. At the time the commission arrived, in the late summer of 1791, Mozart was under pressure to finish the score of the Magic Flute. At the end of November he became feverish, whilst working on both scores simultaneously. In early December he became paralysed but was able to discuss the completion of the work with one of his pupils, Franz Süßmayr, (1766-1803).