Mozart’s Requiem
Completing a masterpiece
Franz Xaver Süssmayr is credited with the completion of Mozart’s Requiem published in 1800. Today, there are recordings of at least 14 new versions by composers (Britten, Finnissy), keyboarddirectors (Diego Fasolis, Arthur Schoonderwoerd), musicologists (Franz
Beyer, Duncan Druce) and mathematicians (Richard Maunder). In the 19th century it was the Requiem of choice for the funerals of personalities ranging from composers (Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Chopin, Rossini) and cultural figures (Schiller, Goethe) to politicians (Napoleon).
For Beethoven’s exequies, even the completed version was considered insufficient and a ‘Libera me’ by Ignaz von Seyfried was added, performed unaccompanied on 29 March 1827 at the Church of the Holy Trinity. Five days later it was performed, accompanied by orchestra, in its rightful place as a pendant to Mozart’s Requiem at one of the Viennese memorial services for Beethoven. Seyfried’s chant-like music is interrupted by instantly recognisable quotes from earlier in the Requiem at the words ‘Dies illa, dies irae’ and ‘Et lux perpetua’.