Requiem in D minor
Kochel number 626; Vienna, December 1791
Count Walsegg-Stuppach had a problem; two problems in fact. His wife had died in February 1791, and he wished to sanctify her passing with a Requiem Mass at which would be performed a choral work of great beauty and dignity. Naturally, as an amateur composer, he wished to create this work himself and dedicate it to the memory of his wife. This is where he had his problem; he was a very poor composer. How was he to get the music he wanted, and the credit for the composition, if he could not write it himself.
Under mysterious circumstances Mozart was commissioned to write this Requiem and was paid handsomely in advance. Dropping everything else he set to work at once, his new son, Franz Kaver, was eating everything in sight. But he did not get very far. King Leopold II of Bohemia was about to be coronated and they wanted Mozart to write a grand opera seria for the occasion. Oh, and could he have it finished by September 6th!
It was not until October that he was able to return to his Requiem commission, but once again he was interrupted by other works, and by his wife, who needed to be brought back from Baden. Just when he freed himself to complete the mission, his health began to fail dramatically, and on November 20th he took to his bed, never to rise again. He was partly paralyzed, suffered from swollen hands and feet and had premonitions of death. Unable to complete his Requiem, he called on the help of a pupil, Sussmayr, and gave him detailed instructions about how he wanted it finished. Outside his bedroom the weather turned from bad to worse and his wife also became ill.
Medical help was hard to find, his own doctor was reluctant to come out in the bad weather, and when he finally came it was only to prescribe cold compresses. Failing rapidly, Mozart lost consciousness and an hour after midnight on December 5th, 1791 one of the greatest geniuses of his (or any other age) died in his bed.
Two months later Constanze, his wife, handed Count Walsegg's agent the score of an entire Requiem and so began a furious debate among music historians. Who had completed Mozart's music? How much of the Requiem is original to the great man and how much to someone else? Much later, Constanze admitted that Franz Sussmayr had finished the work, but, to keep the deception going, they had destroyed all Mozart's original sketches. Even if Constanze did not lie, it is now impossible to say with total accuracy who wrote which notes.
One final mystery remains; why did Mozart not finish the work himself? He was a prolific composer who worked very fast and was a person who could complete a coronation opera in a few weeks. Why did he hold onto the uncompleted work for over six months and only return to it on his deathbed? No one knows - but it would make an interesting story ....