Hail to the (Quasi) Ghostwriter

A great deal of controversy surrounds Wolfgang Amadus Mozart's last work, his towering Requiem in D Minor (K626) How much of it did he actually write? How much was finished after he died in 1791, and by whom? Numerous historians and music lovers have dug into records, eyewitness accounts and personal diaries in the search for the answers to these and other questions about the piece. These are the facts as they are now accepted:

The Requiem mass was commissioned by one Count von Walsegg-Stuppach, an eccentric who often commissioned works anonymously, hired performers to play them at his parties and had his guests attempt to guess the composer. Mozart was paid half up front and half would be paid upon completion, so Mazart's widow Constanze was understandably concerned with getting it finished. As it stood, upon Mozart's death, only the opening Requiem Aeternam movement was complete, and partial orchestration on most of the rest.

Joseph von Eybler was first asked to complete the Requiem, but after working on it for a time, he felt he was not equal to the task, and it was then given to Franz Xaver Sussmayr, who is regarded as the final composer to touch the manuscript (though there is some debate over whether he had help).

This is where facts leave off and conjecture begins, because one can only assume that only a musical genius of Mozart's caliber would have had the ability to complete the masterwork with anything approaching the creative might of the original composer. Many historians automatically assume that if a movement (or even a section of a movement) was particularly good, it must have been written by Mozart himself, and if it were merely adequate, that it was written by Sussmayr, but that fails to take into account certain musical similarities between some movements and themes from Mozart's previous mass (K. 220), which Sussmayr may have heard and borrowed for the Requiem -- some of it might have been almost as good as Mozart's, but was actually a variation on a theme previously written by the maestro.

It must also be noted that the movie "Amadeus" took certain liberties with history in the name of artistic license. The Requiem mass was not, as the movie indicates, written by Antonio Salieri, nor were they the rivals the movie made them out to be (Mozart even asked Salieri to help tutor his children in music). And the stress of working on the Requiem was not ultimately what did Mozart in, but rather rheumatic fever as is now commonly believed.

Even with a slightly cloudy pedigree and uncertain history, however, it cannot be argued that the piece lacks power and conviction. It is a work of stark contrasts: dark foreboding coupled with almost angelic harmonies, slow and contemplative passages followed by energetic, almost frenetic movements, sadness and despair followed by hope and salvation. Quite simply, no other work is quite like it, and even after rehearsing it for several months and performing it with the orchestra numerous times, the Requiem Mass still has the power to move me every time I hear it; repetition and familiarity only serve to impress it further into my soul as a perennial favorite. Having performed it under the direction of none other than violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman only served to cement it in my memory as one of the great performances of my career so far.

Sources: "Mozart may have died of rheumatic fever" Keith K. Klassiks, Vienna Online, April 2000 (Vol. 2, No. 9)
Wikipedia.org 11/2006
Requiem survey, 11/2006

Reviews:
A sumptuous menu of Mozart at Benaroya Hall Melinda Bargreen, Seattle Times, Jan. 28, 2006
Mozart's Requiem: No better salve for soul Melinda Bargreen, Seattle Times, Oct. 12, 2007

Updated: Oct 15, 2007
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