Mass No. 19 in D Minor “Requiem”, K 626 (1791)

W. A. Mozart (b.Salzburg,1756; d.Vienna,1791) wrote only two Masses on commission; the Waisenhaus Mass, when he was thirteen years old, and the Requiem, the last composition of his life. Count Franz Walsegg zu Stuppach, an aristocrat living in Stuppach Castle near Gloggnitz in the Neunkirchen district of Lower Austria, commissioned the Mass for his deceased wife.  Pressed by his obligations to complete two operas, Die Zauberflote, K 620 (1791) and La Clemenza di Tito, K 621 (1791), as well as his Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K 622 (1791), Mozart never finished the Mass beyond the Offertory.  The final three sections were provided by Franz Xaver Süssmayr, a student of the Habsburg Imperial Kapellmeister Antonio Salieri.  Süssmayr assisted Mozart as a copyist on the aforementioned operas, and following Mozart’s death utilized materials from sketches left by Mozart and reworked parts from earlier movements. Musicologist Karl Geiringer opines that Mozart’s Spatzenmesse was one of the models Süssmayr used when completing Mozart's Requiem.  Following the example of Joseph Haydn (as in the Nikolaimesse, which is also in the Chorale & Orchestra’s repertory), Mozart in the Sparrow Mass recapitulates the music of the Kyrie in the Dona nobis pacem, a method that Süssmayr used in his completion of Mozart's Requiem.  The Mozart Requiem also contains a quotation from the Sparrow Mass in its first movement, the Introit - Requiem aeternam. The Requiem is scored for 2 basset horns, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones (alto, tenor & bass), 2 timpani, violins, viola, and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ). The vocal forces include soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass soloists and an SATB mixed Chorus.  The Süssmayr completion of the Requiem is divided into fourteen movements. The Mass is a liturgical work, fitting for use in worship, yet musically on a plane with the much larger settings of the Requiem texts by Verdi and Berlioz. The fact that Mozart was close to death when he set the texts of his “death mass” to music has been the subject of numerous legends fabricated by “romanticists”.  But no stories are needed for such genius.  Truly, Mozart came knocking on the gates of heaven with a plea for entrance accompanied by the music of his Requiem - a cry of such beauty and depth that God (and man) can never cease to find in it a reflection and echo of the infinite mercy of God himself. (53:00)

(Adapted from an unpublished and undated note by Msgr. Richard J. Schuler)