The Mozart Requiem: Classical Entertainment for Halloween

The Mozart Requiem Mass is one of the most popular pieces that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ever composed. It is truly a monumental piece that is beyond time and fads in the world of Classical Music.

Mozart’s Requiem Mass is shrouded in mystery and was made popular by the movie version of Mozart’s’ final years in the movie Amadeus. This movie, for the most part, is NOT based on fact. The competition between Salieri and Mozart is false, and Salieri had no part in the composition of the Requiem.

The true part of the movie is the fact that Mozart died of exhaustion while writing the mass. The Count Walsegg of the day requested that Mozart write a Requiem Mass. Mozart said he had no time to compose such a thing and demanded a large amount of money for the composition to be complete. To Mozart’s surprise the Count’s Servant came back a couple of days later with the large sum of money. Mozart caved in and agreed to compose the Requiem. The Requiem exhausted Mozart to his death.

The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated Introit in Mozart’s hand, and detailed drafts of the Kyrie and the sequence Dies irae as far as the first eight bars of the Lacrymosa movement, and the Offertory. It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost “scraps of paper” for the remainder; he later claimed the Sanctus and Benedictus and the Agnus Dei as his own.

Walsegg probably intended to pass the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart’s widow Constanze. She was responsible for a number of stories surrounding the composition of the work, including the claims that Mozart received the commission from a mysterious messenger who did not reveal the commissioner’s identity, and that Mozart came to believe that he was writing the Requiem for his own funeral.

In addition to the Süssmayr version, a number of alternative completions have been developed by composers and musicologists in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Mozart Requiem Completion

Mozart did not complete the Requiem Mass, and he died during its composition. Only the first part of the Mass was fully completed with all the parts. The remainder of the music was a skeleton outline of unfinished music. The Count Walsegg, for whom the piece was being composed, wanted to take the credit for writing the mass. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, would not let this be done and she found a Mozart contemporary and asked him to complete the work in secret. The contemporary, Eybler, was unable to finish the Requiem and gave it back to Constanze.

In a letter written by Constanze, she suggested that Mozart wanted the piece to be completed with a few pieces of music that Mozart had left on scraps of paper that were to be found in his desk at the time of his death.

Finally, the music for the Mozart Requiem was given to a composer by the name of Sussmayer. It was Sussmayer the completed the composition. And though the story of the completion of the Requiem is ambiguous, we do not know how much of the final Requiem is of Mozart’s pen. The Sussmayer version is the one that people are most familiar with today.

The Mozart Requiem Encapsulates the Halloween Feeling

The Halloween Holiday is riddled with talk of the dead, spirits, and the dead. In the classical world, this is a great piece to be familiar with on Halloween. The ancient pagans use to believe that Halloween night was when this Earth was closest to the next plane. The Christians took over the day and called it All Souls Day or All Saints Day – believing or fantasizing that this in when souls passed to the next plane. But for whatever reason October 31st has developed through history to be associated with the dead. Enjoy listening to Mozart’s ghostly mass…

For More Information on Mozart’s Requiem, follow this link…

Mozart – Requiem – A Beginners Guide (theclassicreview.com)

To Return to the Halloween Main Site, Follow this Link…

The All Halloween Website – (celebratehalloween.net)