目录

专辑简介

According to a contract that Mozart signed and an attorney witnessed, the requiem was commissioned by Franz, Graf (count) von Walsegg-Stuppach. The count, it seems, pretended to some compositional ability and liked to pass off the work of others as his own. The new requiem, intended as a tribute to the count’s wife, was part of that game. Therefore, he insisted that Mozart was neither to make copies of the score nor to reveal his involvement in it and that the first performance was reserved for the man who commissioned the piece.

At the time, Mozart was deeply engaged with the writing of two operas: The Magic Flute and La clemenza di Tito (“The Clemency of Titus”). Together the three assignments were too much for a man suffering from a succession of debilitating fevers. Most of his failing strength went into the operas, both of which were completed and staged. As for the requiem, he worked on it when strength permitted, and several friends came to his apartment December 4, 1791, to sing through the score-in-progress. Yet his condition worsened, and, by the time of Mozart’s death early the next morning, he had finished only the “Introit.” The “Kyrie,” “Sequence,” and “Offertorium” were sketched out. The last three movements—“Benedictus,” “Agnus Dei,” and “Communio”—remained unwritten, and nearly all the orchestration was incomplete.