Mozart Requiem

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Cat No: 8550235

Release Date: 12 January 2000

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 0730099523523

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: Mozart Requiem

Description
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791)Requiem in D minor, K. 626 Mozart's life was all too short. Born in Salzburg in 1756, the son of aleading court musician, he amazed Europe as an infant prodigy, undertakingprotracted tours under the guidance of his father .Adolescence and earlymanhood proved less satisfying. The Mozarts had security in Salzburg, but thecity, under its new Archbishop, seemed to have little to otter, and Mozart wascertain that he deserved something better. In 1781, after fulfilling asuccessful commission in Munich with his opera Idomeneo, he travelled to Viennato join his patron, the Archbishop. When he was denied the opportunities thatseemed within his grasp and particularly the chance of making some impressionon the Emperor, he quarrel led with his employer and, not for the first but nowfor the last time, was dismissed.Mozart spent the last ten years of his life principally in Vienna,without consistent patronage adequate to his needs and without the constantpresence and advice of his father, who remained in Salzburg. An imprudentmarriage made increasing demands on his purse, and initial success in thetheatre and in public subscription concerts was followed by disappointment andthe need to borrow money to meet expenses normal to one of his station.The circumstances surrounding the composition of Mozart's Requiem arewell enough known. In July 1791 he received a commission for the composition ofa Requiem Mass from Count Franz Walsegg zu Stuppach, who sought to commemoratethe recent death of his wife by the performance of a work of this kind, whichhe would claim as his own. To commission the music he sent his steward FranzAnton Leutgeb to Mozart and paid an advance of 60 ducats, with promise of afurther sum when the work was finished. The summer of 1791 was a busy one forMozart. His German opera, Die Zauberflote, was to be staged in the earlyautumn, while Prague had commissioned a coronation opera from him, La clemenza di Tito, and this involved ajourney to the Bohemian capital in September for the occasion. In May he hadbeen appointed unpaid Assistant to the Kapellmeister of St. Stephen'sCathedral, with right of succession to the aging incumbent.Constanze Mozart was later to claim that her husband had a premonitionthat the Requiem was an omen of his own coming death, a suggestion to which onemay attach little credence, however attractive the story may appear to theromantic imagination. Mozart seemed, in the summer of 1791, very much morecheerful than he had been, since his fortunes had taken an obvious turn for thebetter. In November, however, he was taken ill and within a fortnight he wasdead, his death ascribed by his doctor to military fever, but the subject ofmuch subsequent speculation. On 4th December he felt well enough to sing withhis friends parts of the Requiem, which was still incomplete. Benedikt Schack,Tamino in Die Zauberflote, sangthe soprano part in falsetto, Mozart sang alto, the violinist Hofer, husband ofConsta
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