Mozart’s "Ave verum corpus" (K.618) and his unfinished Requiem (K.626) are two choral works that remain among the best loved and most performed in the Classical repertory. They are also two works that helped redefine the venue of religious choral music to include cathedral music in the concert hall.
         The Ave verum corpus autograph was dated June 17, 1791. On 5 December—171 days later—while writing the Requiem Amadeus Mozart’s life ended. The time between Ave verum corpus and the unfinished Requiem represent the remarkably productive last days of Amadeus Mozart.
         During those 171 days the 35-year-old Mozart wrote two operas (K.621, K.620), two cantatas (K.619, K.623), a clarinet concerto (K.622), a motet (K.618), an aria (K.621a), a contrapuntal study (K620b), cadenzas for piano concertos (K.624), and uncompleted requiem (K.626). He conducted his opera’s premiere in Prague (K.621), and then premiered another opera in Vienna (K.620); he conducted his original work (K.623) for his masonic lodge, his original work for glass harmonica (K.617), the musical instrument invented by Ben Franklin.
         Also, during those last days he welcomed into the world Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart his second surviving son born 26 July who he named in honor of the man who would, soon after Mozart’s death, begin composing in secret a completed version of Mozart’s requiem.

Surrounded by the modern day metropolis of Vienna, St. Marx Cemetery is an ancient labyrinth
of tombstone paths that lead to a small meadow where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was laid to rest in 1791.

​Requiem's Mozart
by Miles D Fish

P A R T   O N E
The Last Days of Amadeus

​J U N E
      On June 4, 1791, in her sixth month of pregnancy, Constanze Mozart was experiencing problems with varicose veins. She left Vienna with seven years old son Karl Thomas to take the spa waters at nearby Baden. Mozart sent along Franz Xaver Süßmayr, Mozart’s colleague, music theater composer, and family friend, to keep Constanze and Karl company.
         Anton Stoll, another of Mozart’s good friends who was a schoolteacher and church choirmaster in Baden, made lodging arrangements for Constanze. Mozart letter to Stoll stated
          "Please arrange for a small apartment for my wif’. She only needs a couple of rooms — or a room and a small chamber. The main thing is, though, it needs to be on the ground floor…”
         Mozart joined them on June 15. While in Baden he wrote Ave verum corpus for SATB voices, strings, organ and dedicated it to Stoll (the autograph is dated June 17, his thematic catalogue is dated June 18). The motet was first performed in Stoll’s church June 23 at the feast of Corpus Christi. Presumably Stoll conducted as Mozart was back in Vienna by this time. Stoll was the first owner of the Ave verum corpus autograph along with five other Mozart autographs.
As a good-natured tribute of sorts, Mozart later wrote in a letter to Stoll
               Dearest Stoll!
               good old troll!
               you sit in your hole
              drunk as a Mole!--
              But you’re touched in your soul
              by music’s sweet flow.
         The elegant simplicity of Mozart’s setting of the 14 century Latin Eucharistic text might be attributed Mozart’s awareness of the emperor’s ban on elaborate concert church music and also, on Mozart’s awareness of the limitations of the small town Baden church choir and orchestra.
         Ave verum corpus was Mozart’s only completed sacred work since his dismissal ten years earlier by Salzburg’s Prince-Archbishop Colloredo. (One other sacred major work, Mass in c minor (K.427), was written during that decade but the Mass premiered unfinished in Salzburg and remained unfinished.)
         Ave verum corpus, Mozart’s return to sacred composition, was no doubt heartfelt thanks to Stoll. However, Mozart’s choice to compose church music at this time may also have been due to his recent request to the Vienna city council to appoint him an unpaid adjunct to St. Stephen’s Cathedral Kapellmeister Leopold Hofman (1738-1793). According to Mozart’s request he would assume the lead position at St. Stephen’s upon Hofman’s retirement or death. Mozart wrote to the council
          “…taking the liberty of applying for his post in view of the fact that my musical abilities and achievements as well as my composition skills are well known abroad and my name is held in some esteem in the world…”
         At first the council denied the request but reversed their decision on April 28 and officially appointed Mozart on May 9. Church music was once again in Mozart’s professional life.

ABOVE PHOTOS Mozart’s Thematic Catalogue facsimile shows the Ave verum corpus (fourth entry from the top) date as June 18. The autograph owned by Stoll June 17 (right). Mozart’s Thematic Catalogue cover (right). Constanze made the catalogue available for publication in 1800. It listed in his own hand his last six and three-quarter years of composition.

Copy of 1791 The Magic Flute libretto by Emanuel Schikander (left). Photo of a facsimile of Magic Flute’s Papageno (right). The scene stealing role Schikander would play in the premiere production.

​J U L Y
      With Constanze and Karl settled in Baden, Mozart returned to Vienna and resumed work on his new opera The Magic Flute (K.620). Emanuel Schickander, Mozart’s actor/singer/composer/librettist/entrepreneur/impresario and friend of ten years, had recently taken over management of the Theater-auf-der-Wieden. He increased the seating to 1,000 and installed—the first time in Vienna—an orchestra pit large enough for 35 musicians.
         His theater specialized in Zauberoper, fairy-tale German-language fantasy musicals that were enjoying a heyday in Vienna. In May Mozart agreed to write the music for Schickander’s libretto The Magic Flute. Mozart took a liking to the idea of creating a “fairy-tale opera” and of cashing in on the popularity of the Zauberoper genre. Schickander and Mozart were not only good friends, they were also both masons and the new work would ultimately include masonic references (to the displeasure of some Freemason members).
         It was agreed that Schickander would sing the potentially show-stealing role of Papageno (German for parrot), Mozart’s coloratura sister-in-law Josepha (whose older sister Aloysia, Mozart had proposed marriage before he married Constanze) would sing the Queen of the Night. Other mutual friends from Schickander’s troop would be involved including Franz Xaver Gerl who sang Osmin in The Abduction from the Seraglio.

Mozart’s clavichord is a five octave walnut instrument just right size for his apartment. Most of the works mentioned in this article including Tito, Magic Flute, the Clarinet Concerto, and the unfinished Requiem were composed on this keyboard. Mozart’s son Franz Xaver bequeathed it to the Mozarteum Foundation along with a note of authenticity from Constance.

          It was also agreed Mozart would receive all rental fees after The Magic Flute premiered. A successful production would provide income at a time when Mozart was making ends meet with borrowed money.
         He was one of Europe’s first freelance musician/composers and he was one of the best-paid musicians in the later eighteenth century. Publishers were starting to pay for his works, and he was enjoying renewed popularity in Vienna as well as foreign countries. The year 1791 was no doubt the most profitable year of his life in Vienna. Yet he was broke and without savings. 
        He continued to live a life beyond his means that included a vigorous social life, Constanze’s Baden spa visits, expensive court functions, and two servants. Mozart’s sister Nannerl later said of her brother
                 “His flaws were that he didn’t know how to handle the money.”
And perhaps an equal financial burden was his generosity. His mother said of him
                 “When Wolfgang makes new acquaintances, he immediately wants to give his life and property         
                   to them.”
         The rise of the middle class and the beginnings of popular theater meant that a success at the Theater-auf-der-Wieden could be a financial light at the end of the tunnel for Mozart.
         Schikander’s The Magic Flute was inspired by Jakob August’s Liebeskind’s fairy tale Lulu, or the Magic Flute had been published under the collection titled Dschinnistan . But before the Mozart/Schikander duo finished writing their opera, another singspiel inspired by the same fairy tale--Kaspar, the Bassoonist (Kaspar der Fagottist) by composer by Wenzel Muller—opened at Vienna’s Leopoldstädter Theater.
         Schickander was concerned about the unfortunate timing of Kaspar opening before The Magic Flute opened and began making some changes in his libretto. Mozart however was not concerned. In a letter to Constanze he wrote
               “To cheer myself up I went to the theater to see the Kasperle in the new opera.Der Fagottist, which is creating such a commotion—but actually there’s nothing to it.—“
         Constanze and Karl remained in Baden. Mozart continued to work to work on the opera in Vienna and sent Süßmyar to Baden to keep Constanze and Karl company. Mozart and Schickander met regularly during June and July to discuss the work. Mozart’s letters during this time indicate that he was lonely and missed his wife and son immensely.
               "You won’t be able to imagine how long it’s felt without you. It’s impossible to explain, it’s a certain emptiness — painful — a certain longing which can’t be satisfied and, consequently, doesn’t stop. It just keeps on and on, getting bigger each day.”
         On two more occasions, Mozart left Vienna to visit them in Baden. Schickander, aware that Mozart’s out-of-town trips were interfering with the opera’s progress, provided Mozart with a little house on the Theater-auf-der-Wieden grounds where he could reside and work while Constanze and Karl were in Baden.

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The Little House of the Magic Flute (see description in red box above).

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​Legend has it that Schickander locked Mozart in the “The Little House of the Magic Flute” until he finished the opera, but this is probably not true. To entice Mozart to remain in Vienna Schickander did, however, stocked Mozart’s “little house” with wine, beer, sausages and oysters and he encouraged actors from adjacent Theater-auf-der-Weiden to drop by often and sing through portions of the work in progress.
         He worked on the opera at an exhausting pace and often composed in the “little house”. In July when The Magic Flute was almost complete, Mozart received two offers he could not refuse.
         On July 8 impresario Domenico Guardasoni signed a contract to produce La clemenza di Tito an opera seria based on Metastasio’s libretto that had been previously set to music no less than forty times. The new opera, to be performed in Prague, would celebrate the September 6 coronation of Leopold II, Joseph II’s brother as King of Bohemia.
         As court protocol dictated, Guardasoni first ask court composer Antonio Salieri to compose the opera. Salieri declined and Guardasoni’s second choice—Mozart—accepted probably in mid-July.
         Salieri later explained why he refused Guardasoni’s offer. His protégé Joseph Weigl tended to daily affairs of the court theater but at that time Weigl was occupied with a cantata composition for Prince Esterházy. Salieri had to fill that void left by Weigl Esterházy’s commitment and was unable to accept the opera commission. Esterházy had employed Weigl because Esterházy’s composer, Joseph Haydn, was in London. Indirectly, Mozart’s mentor Haydn was responsible for the Prague opera commission.
         With only six weeks to compose and produce the Prague opera, Mozart laid aside the nearly completed Magic Flute. As he began work on Tito, he received yet another offer. This offer, shrouded in legendary mystery from an anonymous “grey messenger” on behalf of an anonymous “distinguished man”, was a commission for a Requiem Mass with the condition that the authorship of the mass would remain secret. A down payment was made with the remainder to be paid upon completion of the Requiem.
         The “anonymous messenger”, it is believed, was Franz Anton Leitgeb. The “distinguished man” was Count Franz von Walsegg, wealthy aristocrat businessman and amateur musician who had a reputation of secretly commissioning compositions for the purpose of copying them in his own hand then performing and passing them off to friends and his staff musicians as his own compositions.
         That year on February 14, his young wife Anna died, and the Count commissioned two memorials for her. One was a magnificent, sculptured tomb by the renowned Viennese sculptor, Johann Martin Fischer to be placed near a stream in her favorite meadow.  The second was a requiem mass he could conduct in honor of the anniversary of her death, a mass he would claim as his own composition. Hence the condition of secrecy concerning the contract between the anonymous “distinguished man” and Mozart.
         The details of the Requiem commission did not surface until 1964 when Otto Erich Deutsch discovered a document by Anton Herzog who was a staff musician employed by the Count at the time of the Requiem commission. Herzog wrote about the Count and his “compositions”
​                "He secretly organized scores he generally copied out in his own hand…we had to guess who the composer was.  Usually we suggested it was the Count himself…he smiled and was pleased that we (as he thought) had been mystified; but we were amused that he took us for such simpletons.  We were all young, and thought this an innocent pleasure which we gave our lord…”
Up until then the Count secretly commissioned only small works. The Requiem was his first major secret commission. It would be a work that would elevate the memory of his beloved wife as well as his own reputation as composer and musician.
         Mozart accepted the Requiem conditions of secrecy and exclusivity. He also accepted the down payment advance fee with the understanding that he could not start work until he returned from Prague opera commitment. The total commission agreement was 400 florins or about $56,000 USD today.
And good news for Mozart continued. On July 26, Constanze gave birth to Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart. She would later change his name to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
 
A U G U S T
        Mozart’s Adagio in c minor and Rondo in C major for glass harmonica, Ben Franklyn’s musical invention, premiered August 19 in Vienna. August 25 Mozart, Constanze, and Franz Xaver Süßmayr, Mozart’s friend and sometime assistant left for Prague while the Mozart children remained in Vienna. During the journey Mozart and Sußmayr continued to work on the opera. Süßmayr wrote most of the plain recitatives and according to Franz Xaver Niemetschek, Mozart’s first biographer, they completed La clemenza di Tito in 18 days. On August 28 they arrived in Prague.

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S E P T E M B E R
      Emperor Leopold II was crowned King of Bohemia September 6. Mozart conducted the premiere of La clemenza di Tito at the Estate (National) Theater and, as part of the coronation festivities, Salieri conducted Mozart Mass K.317 or K.337 (perhaps both) at Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral. Mozart’s Die Maurerfreude (K.471) was performed at Prague’s local masonic lodge. (note from MDF: in November 2015 a short cantata composed by Mozart and Salieri in 1785 was discovered in Prague; librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte—The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni and Cosí Fan Tutte—wrote the lyrics.)

Prague’s Estate Theater (opened 1783) stands today as it did in Mozart’s day. Mozart conducted the Tito premiere here and the premiere of Don Giovanni, with da Ponte’s friend Casanova sitting box seat front. Mozart also conducted Marriage of Figaro to raves in Prague after a disappointing premiere in Vienna. Many scenes from the Movie Amadeus were filmed here.

        The Prague audience generally dismissed A clemenza di Tito as inferior Mozart and the premiere failed to generate the acclaim Mozart was accustomed to in Bohemia. (The Empress declared it was full of “German hogwash”.) Although Tito gained admiration of the Prague audiences in subsequent performances, the Berlin publication Musikalisches Wochenblatt printed that Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito was
                “…a grand—or rather a mid-sized—serious opera…Furthermore, only the arias and choruses were by his hand; the recitatives were by another.”
​          Mozart experienced the first stages of his illness of rheumatic fever while in Prague. On September 11 a disappointed and somewhat ill Mozart return to Vienna and resumed work on The Magic Flute. He completed the two remaining orchestral numbers, writing the overture last, as was his custom, and on September 28 it was finished. Two days later at the Theater-auf-der-Wieden he conducted the premiere of The Magic Flute his last completed opera.

          Mozart referred to The Magic Flute as “ein große Oper”—a grand opera—and never a singspiel. However, critics and a somewhat confused opening night audience reportedly reacted with enthusiasm that was less than grand. The Berlin newspaper Musikalisches Wochenblatt reported
               “The new machine comedy Die Zauberflöte, with music by our Kapellmeister Mozart, which is being put on at great cost and with much splendor, has not received the hoped-for acclaim, because the content and the language of thepiece are much too poor.”
         Despite the initial lukewarm reviews, The Magic Flute continued to pack the large Theater-auf-der-Weiden night after night.
         And momentum continued to grow. Favorable word-of-mouth, Viennese appetite for elaborate fairytale operas, Magic Flutes exotic set changes, an impressive and large cast of 22 characters, fine performances, and a stunning variety of great Mozart music quickly created a groundswell of goodwill for the new opera.  The Magic flute was the unqualified hit of the Viennese theater season. As at testament to the opera’s popularity, vocal scores became available a mere few weeks after it premiered.
 
O C T O B E R
      Mozart began work on the newly commissioned requiem mass after his return from the Tito Prague premiere mid-September but did not begin working on it continually until the first of November, after the Magic Flute opened September 30.

         Mozart wrote to Constanze, who was in Baden, that on October 14 he had taken Antonio Salieri and Caterina Cavalieri—along with son Karl and his mother-in-law—to a performance of The Magic Flute. Caterina Cavalieri had sung “Marten alter Arten” in Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio and was reputed to be Salieri’s mistress according to Lorenzo LaPonte, court librettist who had written for both for Mozart (Le nozze di Figaro, Don Giovanni, and Così fan tutte) and Salieri.
               “They both said it was an opera worthy to be performed for the grandest festival and before the greatest monarch, and that they would often to see it, as they had never seen a more beautiful or delightful show. Salieri listened and watch most attentively and from the overture to the last chorus there was not a single number that did not call fourth from him a brave! or bello!”
Mozart continued to attended Magic Flute performances almost nightly the month of October. 
         The previous month while in Prague for the Tito premiere, Süßmayr mentioned to Mozart that he, Süßmyar, was writing a piece for Anton Stadler, popular performer and inventor of the basset (extended) clarinet. Stadler was one of Mozart’s closest friends and fellow mason who Mozart had known from his Salzburg days. Mozart had written the Clarinet Trio, the Clarinet Quintet in A, and obbligato parts to arias in La clemenza di Tito for him.
         Mozart earlier had stated in a letter to Anton Staler
               “Never would I have thought that a clarinet could be capable of imitating the human voice as deceptively as it is imitated by you. Truly your instrument has so soft and lovely a tone that nobody with a heart could resist it.”
         Not to be outdone by Süßmayr, Mozart wrote The Concerto for Basset Clarinet (K.622) for Stadler. (The Clarinet Concerto K.622 is most likely a continuation of a work Mozart began in 1789 or 1790 and possibly earlier.)
         In a letter to Constanze October 7 Mozart stated that he had “orchestrated almost the whole of Stadler’s rondo.” Several days after that October 7 letter, Stadler left Vienna for Prague with the completed Concerto for Basset Clarinet and on October 16 the concerto premiered at Prague’s Royal Old City Theater at a benefit concert. Music review Bernhard Weber wrote in a review of the concerto's first performance in 1791
               “Such an abundance of beauty almost tires the soul, and the effect of the whole is sometimes obscured thereby.  But happy the artist whose only fault lies in an all too great perfection.”
         Constanze and the family disapproved of Stadler, but Mozart remained his loyal friend to the end. He loaned Stadler money when he himself was borrowing money to make ends meet and may have financed Stadler’s trip to Prague to premiere the clarinet concerto at a time when Mozart did not have the money to be so generous. The concerto, premiered in Prague by Stadler, was Mozart’s last major work. Mozart would conduct the concerto in Vienna November 18, his last time to be seen in public.
         He was becoming more unwell with rheumatic fever during the next weeks. Vienna’s rain and snowy October increased his rheumatism pain, and he was suffering from depression. With the exception of the Masonic Cantata completed November 15 with text by Schikaneder, Mozart spent most of the latter part of October working on the Requiem and often commented
              “I’m writing this Requiem for myself.”

Since Mozart was known for his wye sense of humor, it is difficult to know to what extent he believed his own words. But enough eyewitnesses have recorded the quote that there is little doubt that he said it often those weeks before his death.
 
N O V E M B E R
      November 15 Mozart finished his last completed work, the masonic cantata Laut verkünde unsee Freude K.623
         Sources are conflicted, but it is probable that Mozart conducted his mason cantata on November 17 and conducted the Vienna premiere of the Clarinet concerto November 18. Whether it was the mason cantata or the clarinet concerto, November 18 was the last time he was seen in public.
         During the month of November, he became too ill to leave his apartment.
Although he was too sick to attend performances of The Magic Flute in November, he reportedly watched the clock and estimated the progress of each night’s performance.
               “Now the first act is ending… Now comes the Queen of the night.”
November 20, he became unusually sick with fever and swelling in his hands and feet and took to his bed. He was treated with cold compresses and bleeding.
 
D E C E M B E R
      The first days of December Mozart experienced continued swelling in his limbs accompanied with fever and headaches. On December 3 however he seems to rally a bit.
         According to some sources, in the afternoon of December 4 Mozart seems to once again rally and, accompanied by several friends, he sang the alto line of his Requiem.
         His final sounds were not from the Lacrimosa as the Movie Amadeus poetically depicted but rather his last sounds were an attempt to sing one of the Requiem timpani parts to Süßmayr.
         Later that evening of December 4th his fever escalated. Constanze’s youngest sister Sophie went for Mozart’s Dr. Closset who was at the theater. The doctor treated Mozart with more bleeding cold compresses as he became increasingly feverish. Then Mozart lapsed into a coma.

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View of St. Stephen’s from the location of the apartment where Mozart’s life ended at 12:55 December 5, 1791. Plaque on the ground level marks the site of the Mozarts last apartment.

   Monday, December 5 at 55 minutes past midnight Mozart’s life ended. Vienna’s physician, Dr. Eduard Guldener von Lobes, examined Mozart's body in his capacity as municipal health officer. In a letter to Giuseppi Carpani, Dr von Lobes wrote
          "In late autumn he had fallen ill with inflammatory rheumatic fever which was going around generally at the time and affected many persons. I only learned of it some days later when his condition had already turned for the worse. For various reasons, I did not visit him but I did ask Dr. Closset, whom I ran into virtually every day, about him. The doctor regarded Mozart's illness as serious and feared from the beginning it would have an unhappy outcome"  (R.X)
         Afternoon of the next day, December 6, Mozart’s body was taken from his Rauhensteingrasse apartment to nearby St. Stephen’s Cathedral. Walking in the procession were Constanze with members of her family plus Salieri, Süßmayr, Mozart’s colleague and copyist Jacob Freystädtler, some of Mozart’s students, and Baron van Swieten a family friend and longtime Mozart patron who had arranged the processional and paid for Mozart’s funeral.

Two photos, outside and inside, of St. Stephen’s small Crucifix Chapel the site of Mozart’s funeral.

​         The procession arrived at St. Stephen’s at 3:00 PM. Mozart’s body was consecrated in the small outdoor Crucifix Chapel and moved to the Church morgue before being moved to St. Marx Cemetery that evening.         
​          Early morning December 7 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was laid to rest in St. Marx Cemetery in an unmarked grave as was the custom of the time for non-nobility citizens of Vienna.
         The Bayreuther Zeitung paper published on December 7 the first public notice of Mozart’s death.
              “Herr Mozart, the artist and darling of our age gave up this past night his beautiful harmonious spirit, and now mixes his heavenly tones with the choir of the immortals. He died too soon for his family and  for art, to which he would have given many more monuments of his abilities.”

ABOVE:  St. Marx Cemetery Vienna where Mozart was laid to rest in an unmarked grave.

RIGHT: The Wiener Zeitung reported “…Wolfgang Mozart died during the night of 4-5 December. From childhood on he was known throughout Europe for his most exceptional musical talent. Through the successful development and diligent application of his extraordinary natural gifts, he scaled the heights of the greatest masters. His works, which are loved and admired everywhere, are proof of his greatness--and they reveal the irreplaceable loss which the noble art of music has suffered through his death.”

The plot thickens...fast. 
​Click below to go to Requiem's Mozart Part II:
The Intrigue of the unfinished Requiem

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