Sunday, Jan 17, 2021 • 17min

Requiem in D minor: Lacrimosa - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

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Mozarts prime time from the last episode gives way to his darkest hours in this episode where Carl looks at the last piece he ever wrote.

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Carl Roewer

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Carl Roewer

00:15

Welcome to "Classical Music: The Stories"

02:38

Hello everybody, and welcome to this week's episode of "Classical Music: The Stories".

02:42

This week, we stay in the same very solemn key of D minor, but from Mahler to

Mozart,

a composer who we've already visited in this journey but, whereas last time we saw

Mozart

in his prime and getting loads of gigs, writing loads of operas and symphonies and concertos and chamber music and everything, we now come two his doomsday, his death day, when things were really not going well for him at all, both financially and in his health as well.

03:21

The piece I played at the beginning comes from his

Requiem Mass in D Minor

, which there's a lot of information to back up that this was his last work, his very last work.

03:35

And the piece I played for you just there is the "Lacrimosa", which happens roughly halfway through the work; it's about 50 minutes long, the

Requiem

, and the "Lacrimosa" comes sort of halfway through that. The interesting thing about the "Lacrimosa" is that

Mozart

wrote eight bars of it before he died at the age of 35, which is horrifically young.

04:02

I just, I sometimes imagine what it would be like if he'd stuck around for maybe even just 10 more years, how much more we'd have, but no, he died at 35 years old, in the year of 1791.

04:17

Probably in November, there are a couple of records that aren't exactly the most exact, but people speculate that it was kind of around November, beginning of December. The beginning of the

Requiem mass

happened when the countess of the area, countess Anna Walsegg zu Stupach, died even younger, at the age of 21, and her husband, the count

Franz Von Walsegg Zu Stupach

, commissioned

Mozart

to write this

Requiem mass

for her.

04:54

Mozart

, however, being even more driven by paranoia and getting more and more, getting closer and closer to craziness and eventually death, believed that this was in fact going to be written for him. He saw that he was writing his own death music, which I can't imagine helped very much in the creative process.

05:18

But, he got as far as the "Lacrimosa", that's not to say he completed everything before that either. The only thing he completely finished of the

Requiem Mass

— which includes the orchestration, the choral and the soloist, all that — was the beginning, the "Introitus Requiem", which is about four minutes long, that's the only bit he ever fully completed.

05:42

Everything else, up until the "Lacrimosa" was completed from a choral point of view. He had done no orchestral music for anything from the "Introitus Requiem" all the way up to the first bar of "Lacrimosa", and when he died, having finished eight bars. I can tell you exactly where he dies.

06:07

If you listen to the next recording, I'll play for you, it's at the first climax when it gets loud, properly for the first time, that's where

Mozart

dies and it was then continued by his only composition student of that time, who goes by the name of

Franz Xaver

Süßmayr

, but before that it will be given to other students and notable musicians of that area.

06:35

We wouldn't know them by name now, but they were well known back in the day. Constanza, who was

Mozart's

widow handed the work to Franz Jakob Freystädtler, and Freystädtler completed the orchestration for the "Kyrie", which is the second instalment of the

Requiem,

straight after the "Introitus".

06:57

He then felt he could not continue and handed it to

Joseph Eybler

, and he completed the orchestrations for the "

Dies Irae

" all the way up to the "Confutatis", and the "Confutatis" happens just before the "Lacrimosa", and that was when it was handed to

Franz Xaver Süßmayr

, and

Süßmayr

did change a couple of things in Freystädtler and

Eybler's

interpretations.

07:23

But ultimately he left it as it was and then continued on the "Lacrimosa", finished it all and added a couple more instalments to make it a fully rounded work, and this is the work that we would now be listening to and playing today, is the one that survived all the everything.

07:43

Mozart

wrote this work, he was given the commission in February of 1791, which was when the countess passed away, and he then left it for a while, the commission, he didn't come back to it until November. People believe it's because he was then distracted by another commission from

Emanuel Schikaneder

, of the theatre in Vienna, to write an opera which then became "

Die Zauberflöte

", or "

The Magic Flute

08:16

And once that is finished, he then turned to the "Lacrimosa", the

Requiem,

the "Lacrimosa" came last. So, the recording I played for you in the beginning, that was

Herbert Von Karajan

conducting the

Wiener Philharmoniker

and the

Wiener Singverein

. I will play you a different recording after I have spoken. It could not be more different, it's from the same time period, the recording, but it's very very different in how it was interpreted.

08:51

The conductor of the second one will be

Leonard Bernstein,

with Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and one of the biggest differences which I'm sure you'll hear straight away is the tempo, the speed it was played at.

09:11

I would think the

von Karajan

recording, the one from the beginning, would be how

Mozart

wanted it, how

Süßmayr

wanted it; very traditional, very factual, which is brilliant sometimes to get the the real thing. Sometimes that conductors take a completely different path, which is also cool, but it's always nice to come back to what it would have actually sounded like.

09:40

And

Bernstein

, his speed is about half of that, the recording length is almost double. But I have to say it's not boring when it's played that slowly.

09:56

I feel like it takes on a huge philosophical sense, there's a lot of thought in every note and because it's so slow, every note lasts quite a lot longer. Every note is played with the absolute utmost care, and when you play it that slowly you probably want that, it makes things more bearable, but

Bernstein

does it so incredibly well.

10:27

I would urge you to listen all the way to the end of it, I know it's it's it's a slightly longer than what it should be, but at the end you get those two final chords where the choir sings "Homo reus". Some people believe that when

Mozart

wrote that, then he threw the score away because he just couldn't continue.

10:49

We know, I know, of course, that he didn't write up as far as that, he only got up to bar eight, but I would urge you to get to that point, those two chords, because the way

Bernstein

has played them is that they last forever, they're eternal, those chords, and they're a G minor chord into a D major chord, which is the most amazing surprise. It's like you hear the voice from a higher power, it's the most amazing moment and when

Bernstein

plays it at that speed, it's even more spectacular.

11:26

So, I would recommend that you listen to the end of that one especially, because that is, it gives me goose bumps when I hear it being played like that. So, that is the

Mozart

Requiem

the "Lacrimosa".

11:44

So, that's where I leave you for this week. I hope you enjoyed the episode. You will now hear

Bernstein's

interpretation and before that you had

Herbert von Karajan

with the

Wiener Philharmoniker

and the

Wiener Singverein,

and now you have

Leonard Bernstein

with the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks. I sincerely hope you enjoy. Thank you very very much for listening.

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