Requiem, K. 626

A bassoon begins, and a basset horn enters before the bassoon’s phrase is over. The basset horn is a low member of the clarinet family. Beneath the long wind notes the strings play short, uneven steps, with rests cutting into the beat.

The basses begin the prayer for eternal rest, and the tenors, altos and sopranos follow in turn with the phrase first heard in the winds. The violins play falling leaps in detached pairs of notes, with a rest after each pair.

Mozart died in Vienna on 5 December 1791, leaving the Requiem unfinished. He had fully scored this opening movement. The rest of Walter’s performance used Süssmayr’s completion.

The choir stops. A short wind link leads to the soprano’s psalm verse in B♭ major, with running lines in the violins. Mozart leaves the organ out under this solo.

Count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the Requiem in memory of his wife. Before conducting it in December 1793, he copied out the score and headed it “Requiem composed by Count Walsegg”.

The basses bring back “Requiem aeternam” while the altos sing a quicker line around them on “Dona eis” (grant them). The two texts are sung together. The sopranos then take up the quicker line.

The last request for light is sung piano. In bars 46–⁠48 choir and orchestra hold A major, the dominant of D minor, under a fermata. In the complete work the Kyrie follows, a fugue in D minor marked Allegro.

The four choral parts enter together in D minor on “Dies irae”, day of wrath, the opening of the Latin Requiem Sequence. The violins play repeated notes and the bass moves in broken chords. Trumpets and timpani mark the beat.

The choral basses sing “Quantus tremor” — how great the trembling — on repeated notes set against the beat, beginning in the second half of bar 40. Sopranos, altos and tenors reply with the words of the day of wrath. The violins keep up their fast figuration throughout.

The choir stops after the first beat of bar 65, and bars 66–⁠68 are for orchestra alone. Violins, bassoons and the bass line keep moving until the final D minor chord cuts them off.

Violins and violas play alone for two bars, in short phrases separated by rests. The choir and lower instruments then enter over the same accompaniment. The metre is 12/8, with four slow beats in each bar, each divided into three.

At the words about rising from the ashes, in bars 5–⁠8, the choir climbs step by step. Separated syllables become longer notes, and the phrase grows to forte over a crescendo. The violins continue beneath it.

In Mozart’s manuscript the Lacrimosa breaks off after eight bars. After his death, Constanze arranged for the unfinished Requiem to be completed. Franz Xaver Süssmayr supplied the rest of this movement in the version performed here.

On 21 December 1791 Joseph Eybler signed a declaration that Constanze had entrusted Mozart’s unfinished Requiem to him, and promised to finish it by the middle of Lent. His additions ran from the Dies irae to this Lacrimosa, where he wrote two soprano bars and stopped. Süssmayr took over the task.

At bar 22 the opening melody returns in D minor, now set to “Dona eis requiem” — grant them rest. The choir sings it forte, with basset horns and bassoons alongside. The violin figures still fall between the beats.

The final Amen extends over two held chords, a plagal cadence from G minor to D major with F♯ in the last chord. The violins complete their short falling figures and stop with the voices.

A short wind phrase leads into the soprano’s prayer for eternal light. Her melody comes from the Introitus psalm verse, in B♭ major. Beneath her longer notes the strings continue their quick figures.

Tenors and basses enter, followed by altos and sopranos. The strings continue their quick figures throughout. Basset horns and bassoons return as the voices enter.

The Communion prayer brings back the words “Requiem aeternam”. The Introitus music returns, combining its long opening theme with quicker phrases on “Dona eis”, which pass from altos to sopranos and then through the lower voices.

In a letter of 8 February 1800 to the publishers Breitkopf & Härtel, Süssmayr explained that in his completion he repeated the Kyrie fugue “in order to give the work more unity”.

Ten months before Süssmayr’s letter, Constanze told the same publishers that Mozart, seeing death near, had asked Süssmayr to repeat the first fugue in the final piece, “as is customary anyway”. In his letter, Süssmayr said he had allowed himself the repetition.

The Kyrie fugue returns at Allegro, now set to “Cum sanctis tuis” (with your saints). It has two themes, one in longer notes and the other in semiquavers. The basses begin the first and the altos the second, and both pass through the other voices of the choir.

On 26 July 1956 Bruno Walter conducted the Requiem in Salzburg’s Small Festival Hall. Lisa della Casa sang the soprano part and Franz Sauer played the organ. The same concert included Mozart’s G minor Symphony No. 25.

Brahms edited the Requiem for the old Mozart Complete Edition. Of Süssmayr’s work he said: “He copied Mozart’s framework painstakingly and completed it with equal amounts of diligence and piety.”

The fugue ends with a sudden broadening to Adagio. The running voices come together on the last words, “Quia pius es”. The final chord contains only D and A, a bare fifth.