A life’s Work: The Story of Mozart

A Requiem Mass or Missa pro defunctis (Mass for the Dead) is a Roman Catholic mass performed in commemoration of the dead. It is used as a funeral service, and is also performed as part of the liturgy of All Souls Day, which occurs annually, on November 2. The offering of Masses for the souls of the faithfully departed is linked with the Catholic belief in Purgatory. Catholics believe that if a person has died believing in God but with venial sins and the hurt caused by sin, then God in His divine love and mercy will first purify the soul. After this purification has been completed, the soul will have the holiness and purity needed to share in the beatific vision in heaven (Saunders).

A requiem is also a musical composition that set

. . .
Mozart sketched some ninety-nine pages in just around a month. Franz Sussmayr (another pupil of Mozart’s) claimed the Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and the Benedictus as his own.

Also, Mozart’s friend Maximilian Stadler seems to have helped Sussmayr with some of

the orchestration.

Contanze Mozart relates the story of how the Requiem came to be commissioned,

Shortly before the coronation of the Emperor Leopold, even before Mozart had received the order to travel to Prague, a letter without signature was brought to him by an unknown messenger, which with many flattering remarks contained an enquiry as to whether he would be willing to undertake to write a Requiem Mass (Landon). One can cry ‘Holy, Holy’ without having to add kettledrum rolls. He died peacefully, but reluctantly. But the weakest parts of the

Requiem in its traditional form, not surprisingly, are those movements Sussmayr

claimed to be his own work: the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. Over 20 years later, the authenticity of the Requiem was thrown into doubt.

This undoubtedly affected Mozart in a profound way as Friedrich Rochlitz, a writer that

had published Mozart anecdotes reports,

Now Mozart was fully persuaded (I must actually admit this) that the man with the noble aspect was quite extraordinary person, most closely associated with Other World, or even sent by It, to announce his (Mozart’s) end (Landon).

The Count, a keen amateur musician, had ambitions himself as a composer, and had the habit of pretending that he had written music by established composers of the time. It is unknown whether he even worked on the Requiem at all. He became weaker and fainter than before. On the day he died, Mozart had the Requiem brought to him. According to Anton Herzog, one of Count Walsegg’s musicians,

The grieving count wished to give the Countess a twofold memorial, of an exceptional kind.

On February 14, 1791 Countess Anna von Walsegg, wife of the Austrian landowner and Industrialist Count Franz von Walsegg, died at her home in Schloss Stuppach.

Common topics in this essay:
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Approximate Word count = 2179
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

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