Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart created his final three symphonies
in the summer of 1788. It is noteworthy that he wrote them with no
external commission, and it is not known if Mozart even managed to hear his
works performed, works that are today acclaimed “hits”. The opening of
the first movement of Symphony No 40
in G Minor, well known through all possibly popular music
interpretations and mobile phone ring tones, has long become one of Mozart’s
well established and easily recognisable calling cards. Like other instrumental
works he wrote, Symphony No 40 is closely associated with theatre
aesthetics. The themes of the symphony are like a love for
characters that have been sketched out, living, loving and suffering, and each
of the four movements is like an act in an operatic production.
The themes of Fate, like the inherently evil image of the Stone
Guest, are touched upon in each movement, introducing a note of
confusion and anxiety. The one and a half hour long symphony reflects
all human life, with its highs and lows, wisdom gained and naivety, strength of
spirit and weakness, faith and doubt.
There is perhaps no piece of music that is surrounded with as many
legends and mysteries as Mozart's Requiem.
A man dressed in black
Bowed respectfully, commissioned a
Requiem from me, then disappeared.
And subsequently:
My man
in black gives me no peace
Day and night.
The mysterious story of the man in black and the Requiem
formed the basis for Pushkin's short tragedy Mozart and Salieri,
written in 1830. The same theme was also the central feature
in Milos Forman's sensational film Amadeus a century and
a half later. The mystique of the legend was largely instrumental
in the film's success, as it was in the popularity of
the great composer's unfinished work (it was completed by Sussmayr from
Mozart's sketches), though the true circumstances of the commission
became clear quite soon afterwards.
The mysterious stranger, presented
in Pushkin's work as "a vision of the grave", was no more than
the servant of Count Walsegg, a great lover of music who played
several instruments reasonably well. The count was not content with his
fame as a performer – he particularly wished to gain renown also as
a composer, but did not have the requisite ability. However, his
ingenious inventiveness helped him to overcome this "insignificant" difficulty.
He anonymously commissioned works from leading composers for large sums of
money, then passed them off as his own. The "creative" idea of
the Requiem came to him on the occasion of the anniversary of his
wife's death.
Contrary to the legendary version, Mozart was in no
hurry to start work on the commission. After agreeing to take it because of
his acute need of money, he put it off in the hope of earning money
from a composition by himself, not from somebody else, and only seriously
started work on the Requiem when he was confined to bed by his fatal
illness. This illness became the cause of rumours about Mozart's violent
death, and played a cruel joke on the outstanding opera composer and
teacher Antonio Salieri, who has gone down in history only as
the poisoner of his brilliant rival. In fact, it is hardly likely that
Salieri was responsible for Mozart's death, though it is certainly true that
they had fallen out.
The Requiem, written for soloists, choir and
orchestra, is a setting of the traditional Latin text and develops
the traditions of the oratorios of Bach and Handel, whose scores
Mozart studied attentively. The composer's operatic experience can be felt
in the solo, choral and orchestral passages. Its brilliant
expressiveness has guaranteed the success of the Requiem on
the concert platform, and Mozart's interpretation of the movements has
become a yardstick that continues to have an influence on composers to this
day (Slonimsky's Requiem).
Nadezhda Kulygina