The Tangled Tale Behind Mozart’s Famed Requiem

This week, San Diego will celebrate the bicentennial of Mozart’s death (Dec. 5, 1791) with four performances of the Requiem, the work the composer vainly attempted to complete on his deathbed.

On Thursday, the choir of St. Paul’s Episcopal Cathedral will sing the Requiem under cathedral choirmaster Edgar Billups. The San Diego Symphony and Master Chorale, under the baton of music director Yoav Talmi, will give three more performances of the Requiem Dec. 6-8 at Copley Symphony Hall. These concerts will wrap up the yearlong observance of the Mozart bicentennial in San Diego.

Some of the mysteries surrounding the completion of the Requiem, as well as some surprising historical data about how Mozart’s widow used the work to feather her nest are recounted in Heinz Gartner’s “Constanze Mozart: After the Requiem.” The German musicologist’s recent study was translated by American classical music scholar Reinhard G. Pauly and published this year by Amadeus Press of Portland, Ore.

The basic story of how Count Franz Walsegg, a Viennese musical dilettante, secretly commissioned Mozart to compose a Requiem that the count would pass off as his own composition is generally well-known. And few would censure Constanze Mozart for getting her husband’s pupils Joseph Eybler and Franz Xaver Sussmayr to finish the Requiem manuscript--about three-quarters of the Requiem was completed by Mozart--in order to obtain the remainder of the count’s payment for the sacred opus.

What is not generally known is how clever a businesswoman Constanze turned out to be. After she received the completed Requiem manuscript from Sussmayr, she had several copies made for her own use before she sent Count Walsegg his score. Even though the count had purchased the rights to the Requiem, Constanze made a tidy sum selling her Requiem manuscript copies to collectors as “Mozart’s Swan Song.” From the King of Prussia, for example, Constanze received 100 ducats--the same amount Count Walsegg paid for the entire commission--for a fair copy of the Requiem. Constanze also bargained with several publishers for additional royalties. She cleverly persuaded two German publishers to issue the Requiem, all the while keeping the identity of Count Walsegg, who actually owned the Requiem, a secret from both.

As Mozart’s posthumous reputation grew, Constanze eagerly cashed in on the first Mozart boom, selling even scraps of compositions to eager collectors. She also arranged for the Requiem’s premiere in Vienna in January, 1793, from which the clever widow collected another 300 ducats. The premiere took place nearly a year before poor Count Walsegg was able to perform the Requiem in his private chapel. Constanze knew that the count would be too embarrassed to challenge her publicly and thus be forced to admit to his rather childish deception.

The Gartner study also revealed facts about court composer Antonio Salieri that never made their way into the popular Mozart film by Milos Forman, “Amadeus,” where Salieri was portrayed as Mozart’s archenemy and poisoner. Constanze proudly told one of her publishers, Breitkopf and Hartel, that Salieri had attended rehearsals of the Requiem premiere and deemed the composition worthy.

She also engaged Salieri to give vocal lessons to her younger son, Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. The young Wolfgang, after lengthy study with Salieri, received a generous letter of recommendation from the court composer to use when he applied for his first position as a music instructor. Salieri ended his recommendation with the statement, “He (Wolfgang) now is my pupil, and I predict that he will be as successful as his famous father.” The prediction did not come true, but so much for the deadly rivalry between Mozart and Salieri.

Upon the deaths of Constanze in 1842, young Wolfgang in 1844, and his older brother Karl in 1858, the Mozart Requiem was performed on each occasion, a fitting testament to Mozart’s family. One other strange coincidence is worth noting concerning significant Mozart Requiem performances. In 1833, while Mozart pupil Eybler was conducting the Requiem he helped complete, he suffered a stroke and died.

The St. Paul’s Requiem will be performed at 8 p.m. Thursday and the symphony’s concert will be at 8 p.m. Dec. 6-7 and at 2 p.m. Dec. 8.

Composer’s imprimatur. British composer Malcolm Arnold will lend his authority to the upcoming San Diego Chamber Orchestra recording of his works for Koch International. Under music director Donald Barra, the local orchestra recorded four Arnold pieces Friday in the University of San Diego’s Founders Hall Chapel.

The prolific 70-year-old composer has been in the city this past week conferring with Barra and his musicians. The four works on the Arnold compact disc will be his Concerto for Two Violins, Serenade for Small Orchestra, Sinfonietta No. 1 and Sinfonietta No. 2.

Arnold may be best known in this country for composing the score to the 1957 motion picture “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” although Arnold did not compose its most memorable tune. The “Colonel Bogey” march was written by Kenneth Alford in 1914.

Patronage in North County. The Carlsbad Arts Office will underwrite four free concerts by the Allegro Quartet to be given at various locations in the culture-conscious North County city.

Specializing in performing Baroque music on modern instruments, the Allegro Quartet includes oboist Karen Victor, flutist Suzanne Kennedy, pianist John Danke, and cellist Ming Zhong. The Allegro concert series opens on Dec. 12, 1 p.m. at the Carlsbad Senior Center. For more information about the series phone 434-2920.