WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART
Lacrimosa Dies Illa
Also known as Mozart’s Requiem In D Minor, Bridget has arranged this beautiful, moving piece for you to play on solo classical guitar.
In this instalment we tackle another beautiful work by the sublime musical master Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). No brief introduction can do justice to his staggering skill, legacy, imagination and ludicrous - apparently effortless – productivity displayed in his brief and troubled life. But, in short, if the term ‘musical genius’ holds any meaning, then it’s hard to imagine anyone more deserving of that description than Mozart.
This particular arrangement is from his Requiem In D minor K626, a piece with an unusual and intriguing origin (mythologised, elaborated and distorted in Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play, Amadeus and the subsequent 1984 film of the same name). There is still some controversy over the exact details, but there is compelling evidence that Mozart was commissioned to write the work (for an ensemble of wind, brass, strings and timpani, four vocal soloists and mixed choir) by Count Franz von Walzegg. The Count wanted the Requiem to commemorate his late wife, but was himself an amateur musician with a reputation for passing off other composers’ works as his own, and purportedly sent a messenger to commission Mozart anonymously paying half up front and half on its completion.
Mozart’s wife, Constanze claimed that in Mozart’s delirium during his illness (which he attributed to being poisoned but is generally thought to have been an undiagnosed natural ailment), he came to believe that he was writing the Requiem for himself on the ominous request of this mysterious visitor. Despite working every day, Mozart did not complete the work before his death on the 5th December 1791. This left Constanze in a bind, who as ever needed money, but could not reveal that the work was incomplete, and commissioned the composer Joseph von Eybler and then Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete it, before delivering to the Count. Von Eybler and Süssmayr may have been aided by Mozart’s sketches, and conversations with his assistant, and several other ‘completions’ have been made since.
Here I made reference to the Mozart/ Süssmayr ‘original’ of one of the Requiem’s most celebrated sections, the Lacrimosa Dies Illa. Meaning ‘This Tearful Day’, the sombre melancholy of the piece is sublimely moving and appropriate to Mozart’s final days. Mozart only wrote the (albeit stunning) first 8 bars, and Süssmayr completed the work with an additional 22 bars. The piece is in a stately 12/8 metre moving through a compelling chord sequence in the key of D minor (which is maintained here with the use of drop D tuning). The piece sits well on the guitar, and is characterised by the use of slurs and arpeggios to maintain the 12/8 (four groups of three quavers) under the melody. In order to gain fluency it may be helpful (and generally beneficial) to really understand the harmony of the piece (chord symbols are provided), which voice-leads beautifully from chord to chord. There are some technical challenges here outlined in the tab captions but they are manageable with some patient work, making the end result well worth the effort.
NEXT MONTH Brings us her arrangement of the wonderful Barcarolle by Offenbach
the piece sits well on the guitar , and is characterised by slurs and arpeggios maintaining the 12/8 under the melody