Until I started researching for The Sound of Music series, I had no clue what a fascinating history that Mozart's Requiem had. The people involved were just as intriguing as the music--their actions only enhanced the mysterious aura and controversial nature of Mozart's Requiem. Talk about drama!
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem was commissioned by the eccentric Count Franz von Walsegg in 1791, to commemorate the anniversary of his wife, Anna, who passed away on Valentine's Day, 14 February 1791. Count Walsegg of Stuppach Castle, Gloggnitz, Austria, was 28 when his wife Anna, 21, passed away. He never remarried. He had a statue of her made and commissioned the Requiem to be played on the anniversary of his wife's passing.
The Count was an amateur musician himself. He liked to commission musical pieces and perform those pieces for his friends and other nobles he entertained at his home. Unfortunately, he liked to pass off the musicians' works as his own. That's called plagiarism. But a few of the Count's friends were aware of his deception and thought it nothing more than harmless fun.
The Count intended to pass off Mozart's Requiem as his own. But Mozart died on 5 December 1791, before he finished the work. Now it gets interesting.
Count Walsegg, using intermediaries to keep his identity and intentions a secret, had only paid half of the commission upfront. The rest was to be paid upon delivery of the completed work. Mozart's wife, Constanze, eager to get the rest of the commission, sought out several musicians to complete the work. Among them were Joseph von Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr, two very accomplished and noted composers, Mozart's peers and friends.
It was at this point that Constanze did a little deception of her own. She wanted to pass off the work as completed by Mozart, to reap the full monetary rewards. But Mozart only had two parts done.
Mozart had completed only "Requiem aeternam" and "Kyrie", the first two parts. He had a basic idea for "Sequence"--including the famous Dies Irae--and the "Offertorium", and he started a few bars on "Lacrymosa". Mozart had an introduction, but no body nor conclusion to his work. It was very incomplete, and it would take the contributions of other composers to flesh out and finish the Requiem. The final completed Requiem has eight parts:
I. Introitus (Requiem aeternam)
II. Kyrie (Kyrie eleison)
III. Sequentia (with Dies Irae and Lacrimosa)
IV. Offertorium
V. Sanctus
VI. Benedictus
VII. Agnus Dei
VIII. Communio
Joseph von Eybler met and befriended Mozart through Joseph Haydn. And when Mozart fell ill, it was Eybler who carried Mozart to bed and helped nurse him and comfort him til the end. Because of this, Eybler was the first peer and Mozart friend Constanze asked to complete the Requiem.
Eybler worked on Part III Sequentia, and started on Part IV Offertorium. Sequentia has the famous Dies Irae and Lacrimosa. But Eybler was unable to complete the work. So he returned the manuscript back to Constanze.
Constanze then took the work to Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who completed the Requiem, by adding Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, the standard components of a Requiem.
To maximize profits from Mozart's passing, Constanze had a public benefit performed of Introitus and Kyrie, the only two parts Mozart completed, on 10 December 1791. On the 21st of December, she delivered the score to Joseph Leopold Eybler, who planned to finish it by March 1792 (Mid Lent). But he felt unable to complete the work, so it was returned to Constanze.
Constanze finally gave it to Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who did complete the Requiem by March 1792, within a 100 days of receiving the work. Süssmayr was great friends with Mozart and finished the Requiem in honor of his friend.
Now enters another intriguing figure: Baron Gottfried van Swieten, a librarian and diplomat for the Austrian government. As a skilled diplomat, he maintained Austria's standing and was part of the First Partition of Poland in 1772, in which Austria, Prussia, and Russia carved out huge territories out of Poland.
Upon retiring from diplomacy, he was made the Imperial Library Prefect in 1777, where he introduced the world's first card catalogue. Before, libraries had catalogues, but they were in the form of large bound volumes. Swieten's innovation of using cards, not large bound volumes, meant that new entries could be added easily and searches were now much more efficient and easy using card catalogues. Thus, the card catalogue revolutionized library organization and soon spread across Europe and the world.
More important to our story, Baron Gottfried van Swieten was a patron of musicians such as Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Baron Swieten supported Mozart and exposed him to the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel that the Baron had collected during his diplomatic service in Berlin, Prussia.
And when Mozart passed away, Baron Swieten continued to support Mozart's family, even arranging for Mozart's son Karl to be educated in Prague. Baron Swieten showed up at Mozart's home upon learning of Mozart's passing and made the funeral arrangements. And on 2 January 1793, he sponsored the first full performance of Mozart's Requiem as a benefit concert for Constanze. The performance was a success and great financial help to the Mozarts.
That concert, along with earlier performance of the first two parts at Mozart's funeral benefit, established the Requiem as Mozart's work. Thus, Count Walsegg couldn't claim the work as his own as he had originally planned. But he still accepted the completed Requiem when it was delivered to him by Franz Xaver Süssmayr in early December 1793. On 14 December 1793, Count Walsegg had the Requiem performed in memory of his wife. And on 14 February 1794, the Requiem was performed for the anniversary of his wife Anna's passing, finally fulfilling the purpose of the commission.
And while the commission was fulfilled, the efforts made to complete the Requiem had created chaos and controversy. Eager to receive the maximum monetary rewards for a full Mozart work, not the less pay of a collaboration, Constanze stuck to her guns and continued to claim that Mozart completed the Requiem before his passing.
Constanze even begun rumors that Mozart was poisoned and that the Requiem was written in anticipation of his imminent death. She further claimed that there existed scraps of papers that detailed the completed Requiem. No such scraps of paper were ever found.
And in her zeal to gain the most amount of money and to enhance Mozart's reputation, Constanze destroyed the friendship with Franz Xaver Süssmayr; she falsely claimed that Franz Xaver Süssmayr was a student of Mozart, denying him the respect as the peer who completed Mozart's final work. Franz Xaver Süssmayr would never speak to Constanze again, even though they lived in the same city and often traveled in the same circles. In years later, Constanze wrote to Süssmayr. Süssmayr never replied nor contacted Constanze ever again.
A few years after it was first performed, critics began to doubt Constanze's story and acknowledged that Mozart's Requiem was incomplete; and it was accepted that Joseph von Eybler and Franz Xaver Süssmayr contributed and completed the Requiem. But the controversy continues as to how much of the Requiem was actually all Mozart.
There are noticeable similarities between Mozart's Kyrie and Handel's Messiah. There are pieces of Messiah actually incorporated wholly in Requiem! Remember that Mozart admired Handel and was exposed to Handel's work through Baron Sweiten. In fact, Mozart was commissioned by Baron Swieten to rearrange Handel's Messiah. The debate continues to this day. The truth is, musicians often influence each other and are often inspired by each other.
In regards to the Requiem, Ludwig van Beethoven said it best, "If Mozart did not write the music, then the man who wrote it was a Mozart."
For this post, I'm sharing just a few pieces of Mozart's Requiem--though at this point, it should be Mozart, Eybler, and Süssmayr's Requiem. We'll begin with Kyrie, Mozart's work. Then we'll listen to Süssmayr's contributions: Sanctus and Agnus Dei. And finally, we end with Eybler's contributions, Lacrimosa and my favorite piece, Dies Irae.
As always, please let me know if the music clips don't work, so that I can fix them. Click on the song name to open the music on your own player or to download it so you can listen to it later. I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think.
Mozart's Requiem Kyrie
Complex and grand.
Mozart's Requiem Sanctus (by Süssmayr)
The opening inspires visions of ascending to the heavens.
Mozart's Requiem Agnus Dei (by Süssmayr)
Omnious and eerie.
Mozart's Requiem Lacrimosa (by Eybler)
Chilling and intimidating.
Mozart's Requiem Dies Irae
Dark and haunting, Dies Irae is the theme song to my villainous, take over the world schemes! Or my plans to destroy my enemies! Minions! Prepare the Destructo Ray!
Dies Irae has an even more intriguing history then Mozart's Requiem. The name Dies Irae means Day of Wrath in Latin. It is a part of the Roman Catholic tradition; a tradition so old that its origins are unknown. The work has been ascribed to either the Franciscan or Dominican orders or several saints of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries; or even as far back as the 600 AD!
Many classical composers have been inspired by the Dies Irae and have included parts of it in their own works. Among them, besides Mozart, are Hector Berlioz, Giuseppe Verdi, Gaetano Donizetti, and Igor Stravinsky. The melody has been used by others such as Johannes Brahms, Joseph Haydn, Franz Liszt, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Many other composers of the classics and contemporary music still use Dies Irae in their works. Those composers were sampling Dies Irae long before rappers were sampling Chic and other retro hits to make their music!
That's right! They were plagiarizing hymns! Stealing from Jesus. That's probably why some of them died horrible, painful deaths; divine retribution! Punishment for their sins!
Or it could be just poor hygiene, poor diet, woefully inadequate medicine, and just living in a filthy, germ ridden world where they don't wash hands and lacked indoor plumbing and had no idea about proper sanitation and food safety. And it doesn't help that the cure for everything was blood letting by leeches. Got a headache? Get some leeches! A stomachache? Get the leeches! Caught an Venereal Disease? Rub some poisonous mercury on your genitals. Better yet, go with the leeches--much safer in this case; ineffective, but at least it won't poison you. It's a wonder humanity survived.
There is no doubt that Dies Irae is an incredibly influential and evocative piece of music, even if its origins and history are uncertain. It's extremely popular in films and tv and in videogames as well. The haunting essence of Dies Irae reverberates in the soul and has a universal appeal. It inspires fear yet its beauty draws us, like sailors lured to their destruction upon rocky shores by enchanting sirens dealing out death in a most ethereal manner.
Dies Irae also bears a striking similarity to a Jewish liturgy work Unetanneh Tokef, which appeared in Jewish practice in the thirteenth century, and whose origins are also uncertain. Evidence from the Cairo Genizah, a collection of Jewish writings from the eighth century to the 1800s, suggests that Unetanneh Tokef existed in the eighth century.
The inclusion of Dies Irae in the Mass Requiem (Funeral Mass for the Dead) and the Unetanneh Tokef in the Jewish liturgy came at a time when death from violence, pestilence, persecution, and war was so pervasive in the Middle Ages. The Reconquista, the Crusades, the Plague, and the warring emerging nations and raiding barbarians all took a heavy toll on the population. Death was everywhere, and the people suffered from the whims, greed, and foolishness of the rich and mighty. Kind of like today.
In these times of troubles, people sought out a higher power to make sense of a world gone mad. Whereas the Unetanneh Tokef offered hope to the persecuted Jews, Dies Irae offered the promise of salvation to the Christians who kept faith in these troubling times.
Indeed, to the lay person, these terrible, violent times might have seemed like the end of the world. And for the faithful, the end of the world meant the return of Christ and deliverance from suffering, an ascension to a better world, a paradise, a heaven.
A striking Medieval poem, inspired by the Biblical Book of Zephaniah, was applied to the hymn that became Dies Irae. It describes the Day of Wrath as Judgment Day, when the trumpet from heaven summons the dead souls to arise and stand before the Lord for Final Judgment; the good are saved and sent to Heaven; the damned are sent to the eternal flames of Hell.
"...(15) That day will be a day of wrath, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, (16) a day of trumpet blast and battle cry against the fortified cities and against the lofty battlements. (17) I will bring such distress upon people that they shall walk like the blind; because they have sinned against the Lord, their blood shall be poured out like dust, and their flesh like dung. (18) Neither their silver nor their gold will be able to save them on the day of the Lord’s wrath; in the fire of his passion the whole earth shall be consumed; for a full, a terrible end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth."
--Zephaniah 1: 14-18, Old Testament, Bible
How's that for inspiration? Paints a lovely picture doesn't it? So worthy of an action packed video game or thrilling sci-fi movie! So dark and ominous and terrifying. I love it!
I hope you find Mozart's Requiem as interesting as I do. At the very least, I hope you enjoyed some of it. Let me know what you think of this work. And share with me any other ominous, foreboding masterpieces that you know of. I appreciate learning about new, fantastic music. And scary, frightening music has a unique appeal that I like. You never know when you might need a soundtrack as you plan your take over of the world!
Further Interesting Reading:
The unsung hero behind Mozart’s Requiem, Franz Xaver Süssmayr by Peter Lefevre. January 29, 2015
At: https://csosoundsandstories.org/the-unsung-hero-behind-mozarts-requiem-franz-xaver-sussmayr/
Mozart's Requiem Labyrinth of Deception by Bill Dewitt. 2009
At: http://www.salieri-online.com/mozreq/pg1.php
Related Links
The Sound of Music 1: The Classics - Ephemeral
The Sound of Music 2: The Classics - Ethereal
The Sound of Music: Classics - The Nutcracker
The Sound of Music: Holidays Classics Vol 1
The Sound of Music: Holidays Classics Vol 2
The Sound of Music 3: The Classics - Ebullient
The Sound of Music: Classics - Swan Lake
The Sound of Music: Classics - Opera Part 1
So many good composers, who could chose just one. Never knew that Mozart's Requiem was commissioned by the eccentric Count Franz von Walsegg....as many other Mozart tid -bits here. What a fascinating read.
ReplyDeleteMaddie, Thank you! I was very much surprised when I was researching the history of Mozart's Requiem. I had no clue about the controversy surrounding it! The characters around the work were incredibly fascinating and intriguing!
DeleteP.S. I apologize for your first comment going in the spam box. I returned it to post, but then I realized it was a copy of your second comment that made it through. So I removed the first comment to avoid the double posting. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
Another fine selection. That Dies Irae features in a film or TV show that I've seen - a scene of comedic carnage - but I can't remember which one, or the details of the scene. It'll come to me in the dead of night, no doubt.
ReplyDeleteP.S. I saw/heard this and thought of you!
IDV, Dies Irae, is perfect for action sequences! It's amazing how music from the dark ages--and from a bunch of religious monks!--can still be so fascinating in this day. Then again, I loved those Benedictine monks chanting in Enigma's Sadeness!
DeleteThat's an awesome link! I'm actually working on a few posts with a lot of those songs in the list! Ha! Even the ones I posted about before are on the list! It just goes to show that good music (and great art) is timeless! Thanks for sharing the neat link!