Lacrimosa dies illa

The Requiem Mass in D minor, was the last composition by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and was left unfinished at the Austrian composer’s untimely demise at the young age of 35, on December 5, 1791, in Vienna, and completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Under the supervision of Mozart’s widow, Constanze, efforts to complete the Requiem began immediately after the composer’s death. It was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate his wife’s death anniversary, February 14. Myths and controversies have immensely surrounded this piece, in particular, the question of how much actually was written by Mozart before he passed on. The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated introit in Mozart’s hand, as well as detailed drafts of the Kyrie and the sequence Dies Irae as far as the first nine bars of Lacrimosa, and the offertory. It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost “scraps of paper“ for the remainder. S