The Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has become a work which, shortly after its composition and down to the present day, has mythic proportions. This is perhaps due in part to its unfinished quality, or to its being the final work by the composer. It may be that the enduring fascination comes from the several attempts at completing the composition over the ensuing two hundred years. For others, the subject matter itself holds a mysterious power. And certainly, the film Amadeus did nothing to dispel the romantic proportions of this great masterpiece!
In 1791 the composer accepted the commission for a requiem mass from the Count of Walsegg-Stuppach, to honor the Count's wife on the first anniversary of her death. He was paid fifty ducats in advance. (It is assumed that the Count intended to have the work performed under his own name rather than that of Mozart.) During this time Mozart was also working on the operas The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito as well as a Masonic cantata. During the second half of 1791, he completed the "Requiem" movement as well as the "Kyrie" and the first half of the six part sequence. We can assume that the Offertorium ("Domine Jesu" and "Hostias") was written by September. The instrumentation was sketched only for the first two movements. Mozart died after writing only the first eight bars of the "Lacrimosa."
After his death Mozart’s students and friends undertook the task of interpreting his indications of instrumentation for the sketched portions of the work. The "Sanctus," "Benedictus" and "Agnus Dei" were composed by Xaver Suessmayr, and the final movement was set to the opening sections written by the composer. As such, the cyclic and liturgical nature of the work was maintained.
Today’s listeners are left with the torso of a work. Yet even in this form, we feast on a beautiful poetic ode to death. Can one sense the composer’s impending death and his struggle to deal with that reality? Perhaps. But whatever the case, the Requiem is, even in its truncated form, a culminating work in a young life filled with genius and deep insight into the human condition.