Premiere of Requiem-Recomposed w/ Omega Ensemble & The Australian Voices
I‘m incredibly grateful and excited that Omega Ensemble and The Australian Voices recently premiered my Requiem-Recomposed, an original composition inspired by the content and circumstances of Mozart’s last work.
Recomposing Mozart’s Requiem: why would anyone want to DO such a thing? I’m certainly not advocating to give every great work a ‘Richterfication’. But the fact is: in order to perform the Requiem, someone has to fill in the gaps, and in this case there are more gaps than bricks. Despite the veneer of completeness in concert halls and on recording, Mozart’s Requiem is un-performable.
There have been at least twenty-two modern completions (presumably more), so if we’re in of another, I’ll leave that to more musicologically-drilled composers than me.
The authorship of Mozart’s last work was in question, even before Süßmayr arrived at the scene. (The commissioner, Count Walsegg intended to pass the work off as his own.) Following her husband’s death, Constanze Mozart desperately needed the income, and therefore enlisted Eybler and Süßmayr to get it done.
It was recently discovered that the Requiem’s first performance was given on 6 December 1791 just five days after Mozart‘s death. Mozart’s own Requiem service was organised by his friend and collaborator Emanuel Schikaneder, who understood the significance of his final musical statement. At that time the only performable part of the work was the first movement, the Introit. One can only imagine that a combination of orchestral instruments, organ, continuo and sung plainchant were used to fill out the fragments into a full mass.
As source material I’ve ignored everything that Beyer and Süßmayr contributed, starting only with the Bärenreiter edition of what Mozart actually penned. The vocal parts (including, crucially, figured-bass) up to and including the Hostias are from Mozart. Orchestral parts exist only for Introit and other fragmentary passages. The first eight bars of Lacrymosa are Mozart, and thereafter, Süßmayr’s begins.
In my work, I’ve latched onto many of the most important motifs, treating them with new harmony, instrumentation and I other smodern effects, to hopefully shed them in new light. From time to time, I drift back into untouched Mozart vocal parts (though avoiding Eybler’s and Süßmayr’s orchestration).
For the ensemble I’ve chose a bed of strings to accompany the choir (with ad hoc soli). Timpani (including various techniques using different parts of the instrument) invites in a whole percussion section. I’ve made a feature of an instrument close to Mozart’s heart: the clarinet. Inspired by the composer’s figured-bass part, I’ve assembled a showroom of keyboard instruments (synthesiser, organ, piano, melodica) as well a harp; these instruments taking on a chordal role from time to time.
In the Introit, Mozart borrowed from a choral melody “Herr Jesu Christ, du Höchstes Gut” for the subject of his opening contrapuntal passages. I have a semi-chorus sing the full Lutheran theme in German against the Mozart motif sung in Latin.
I’ve inserted Mozart’s iconic Tuba mirum solo (“wonderous sound, the trumpet flingeth”) inside the Dies irae (“Day of Judgement”), the reason being that the two verses in fact both belong inside the traditional Sequence of the mass. (Have you ever noticed that the solo bass melody has the same shape as the sopranos in the Dies irae?)
In the 1960s a Mozart sketch for an Amen fugue was found, probably to crown the Lacrymosa. (Neither Süßmayr nor Mozart made use of it). I’ve adopted the melody as a recurring theme in several movements, heard after my Dies irae and again at the conclusion of the work.
I’ve woven in the traditional plainchant in Domine Jesu, imagining Schickaneder and other friends at Mozart’s memorial, trying to patch together the missing fragments of the mass.
Two versions of Lacrymosa occur in my work. The first of these occupies the slot in the mass where it properly sits. The second is at the conclusion of my composition, building to the poignant moment in bar 8 of the original, when Mozart’s pen stops. This is emblematic of the fact that Mozart’s Requiem is generally regarded primarily as a concert work (born of Italian opera tradition). Therefore (unlike most realisations) I’ve made no attempt to massage the work into a proper Requiem mass, but included only what I think is musically necessary.