This final number included in the “official” catalog of Mozart’s work gave rise to a number of legends founding, from the 19th century, the romantic myth of a musician himself cut down by a suspicious death and haunted, during his composition, by the announcement of his imminent end…
Added to this gloomy picture is the incompleteness of the score, interrupted by this sudden, dazzling and fatal illness, and the disputes that arose regarding various contributors asked by Constance, Mozart’s widow, to carry out the “finishing”.
The numerous sources (correspondence, manuscript, autograph, etc.) today give a much simpler version of the final affection which took Mozart away at dawn on December 5, 1791, as well as supplements provided by some of his students, foremost among whom, undoubtedly, Franz Xaver Sussmayr.
Mozart facing death
As for Mozart’s attitude towards death, far from any superstition, it emerges from the letters he sent to his family during the numerous bereavements which punctuated his life. “We must not grieve too much, because God’s will is always the best, and God knows well whether it is better to be in this world or the next. » (Letter to his sister about his friend Martha Hagenauer, September 29, 1770).
The Requiem respects the canons that the Catholic liturgy then assigned to the Mass of the Dead: from the introit initiated by the verse “requiem aeternam”, then the ample sequence of the Dies irae up to the Agnus Dei. On the other hand, the final Communion of the office did not receive any musical treatment of its own, Sussmayr having taken over the notes of the inaugural sections.
A Viennese score
The score also relies on conventions: those specific to religious works in progress in Vienna, such as the Requiem by his Salzburg “colleague” Michael Haydn. We can also discern, in the instrumentation or harmony, features specific to Masonic music, notably the presence of basset horns or the key of E-flat major. We even hear echoes of The Magic Flute which the public could then applaud on the stage of the Theater auf der Wieden.
And far from the disparate nature that we have sometimes taken pleasure in denouncing, this work left incomplete, “abandoned” to mercenary pens, resounds everywhere with the mastery of its brilliant creator. “The Requiem is a work of exceptional cohesion, with the initial five-note figure (D-C sharp-D-E-F) recurring in various forms in most movements. », notes David Humphreys in the Mozart Dictionary (JC Lattès, 1990).
Range of affects
Above all, the listener enjoys the exceptional ability of this master of opera to summon all the affects expressed by the sacred texts: from terror to hope, to the sweet distress of Lacrimosa, of indescribable beauty.
“Like death […] is the final stage of our life, I have become familiar for several years with this true and best friend of man, so that his image not only no longer has anything frightening for me, but is rather something reassuring and consoling. » (Mozart to his father, April 4, 1787).
From July 4 to 12 at 10 p.m. at the Théâtre de l’Archevêché. Broadcast on France Musique on July 21.
