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Hello and welcome to the Insights and Sounds podcast, a podcast centered around classical music. Join Dr. John Sinclair, and explore composers past and present, their works, and an occasional classical music informational episode.
Hello and welcome to the first episode of the Insights and Sounds podcast. In this episode, your host, doctor John Sinclair, takes you through Mozart's life and death with a focus on his final work, Mozart's Requiem. Thanks
Voiceover:And now, doctor John Sinclair.
Dr. Sinclair:Hello, good people. Welcome to our first podcast. I'm so excited to share with you the mystery of Mozart and his requiem. The musician baptized as Johannes Christophle Mus, Wolfgangas, Theophilus, Mozart, or as he preferred to be called, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, is unrivaled for his prodigious ability and creative output as a composer and a performer. But his last work had a personal essence not found in most of his music, and his requiem remains one of the greatest mysteries of classical music.
Dr. Sinclair:Be before we go any further and dive into the last days and events surrounding the completion of his requiem, let's take a step back to understand a bit about Mozart's life. It seems that God put Mozart on earth to humble the rest of us. Many musicians believe him to be the most innate musician in history. Even Joseph Haydn told Mozart's father, Leopold, before God and as an honest man, I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. Mozart was born in the evening of January 27, 1756 in a 3rd floor apartment the family rented from a grocer.
Dr. Sinclair:What his father, Leopold Mozart, called the miracle of God survived when many babies during this time did not. Leopold even wrote, quote, another boy, my poor wife had a wretched labor. The pain and she bled terribly, and the afterbirth had to be extracted. I thought she might die. But she's now recovering, and the baby made it through christening at least.
Dr. Sinclair:Now we must wait and see. 5 babies dead to date. The boys don't live any longer than the girls do. It will again be the hands of God. Likewise, my violin method will be in the hands of God and making its way into the world.
Dr. Sinclair:But as for the boy, nothing is to be gained from speculating about him. Even if this one makes it past the 1st few weeks, there are no guarantees. No matter your labor or the heart's blood put into the rearing of him, we do what we can, but our lot is to submit. Well, we now can only suppose Mozart was that typical toddler, nursed, burbled, crawled. He was healthy and normal, except for a deformed outer left ear.
Dr. Sinclair:Like other children of his age, at 3 or 4, he probably banged on the clavier or the keyboard instrument. But it seems that a few days before his 5th birthday, out of the blue, he began playing the clavier as if he had done so. Leopold reported he began memorizing his older sister, Nannerl's music notebook, taking him weeks to accomplish, but took her several years. The next revelation came when Leopold heard Wolfgang playing an unfamiliar piece. Leopold quickly wrote it down, entitled it, Wolfgang Mozart, December 11, 17, 61.
Dr. Sinclair:This little Andante in C major was an actual short, well constructed piece. Certainly, he mimicked works he had heard but with original material. Now Leopold, who had not shown that much interest in Wolfgang, perked up and began his musical education in earnest. Leopold was a composer and an accomplished teacher, so he knew how to train him. And he wasn't long the Wolfgang, or as his family called him, Wolfie, was improvising and composing and playing difficult music.
Dr. Sinclair:A musician friend wrote, quote, at age 6, Wolfgang played the most difficult pieces for the pianoforte. Some of his own invention, he skimmed the octave with his short little fingers that could not span at fascinating speed and with wonderful accuracy. He could, with ease, take a musical theme and improvise a few variations. Well, while his father's schooling included basic math and geography and history, Leopold insisted he learn languages too. Wolfgang was fluent in Latin, Italian, French, and of course his native German.
Dr. Sinclair:Leopold knew he had a star on his hands, so he asked permission from his employer, the archbishop of Salzburg, to take Wolfgang and his sister on tour. It was granted, and their first trips were to Munich, 17/63, where an age 7 Mozart performed for the Bavarian elector, Maximilian the third Joseph. This led to an invitation to Augsburg and eventually to Paris where he played for the French court. And finally to London in 17/64 where an 8 year old Mozart played for influential figures including King George. He also played for Earl of Sandwich, and that always surprises me because I always think of Earl of Sandwich as only his restaurant at Disney, but evidently, it was a real position.
Dr. Sinclair:But he did play for King George, back to the topic. But what Wolfgang remembered about his trip to London was that he played and met J. C. Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's youngest son, who we refer to as the London Bach. Not only was Bach impressed with Wolfgang, Mozart found him completely influencing his music.
Dr. Sinclair:And it's this time when Mozart attempted writing his first symphony. A year later, a trip to Vienna included him playing for Empress Maria Theresa, where it's reported that he finished playing and ran and jumped in her lap and gave her a kiss. And he even met Marie Antoinette, told her that he was gonna marry her someday. Remember, this is an 8 year old Mozart. Then a few years later, he toured Italy starting in Milan, working his way to Rome, while on the way meeting a new mentor, Padre Martini.
Dr. Sinclair:While in Rome, he met pope Clement the 14th and attended a service in Sistine Chapel here in Algarri's Misurere. This is a beautiful 12 minute 5 part choral work from the 17th century. It is here where the feet of his musical prowess and a legend begins. You see, the miserrere was so prized that the performers in the chapel were forbidden to take this music out of the Sistine Chapel. If they did, they were threatened with excommunication.
Dr. Sinclair:Evidently, Wolfgang went to a performance and listened to it, went back to their lodging, and wrote the entire piece down from memory. In a letter Leopold wrote, they said, we have a copy of the forbidden piece. Wolfgang has written it down. Mozart returned to hear the misery a few days later on Good Friday, probably to check his memory, which served him well. Less than a month later, Mozart left Rome with the peace.
Dr. Sinclair:And believe it or not, the pope wasn't so angry because he was so impressed with what had happened. Well, while he was there in Rome, he was also presented by the pope with the order of the golden sperm, one of the Vatican's highest honors. It's important for us to remember these tours were not just about performing, but also about the exchange of musical ideas and influences. They significantly contributed to Mozart's development as a composer and musician. Moz to study, but he also studied briefly with Haydn, and he considered Michael Haydn, Joseph's brother, one of his major influences.
Dr. Sinclair:Mozart was a sponge, learning from each piece of music he heard and studied, and he had a gift of absorbing and adapting features of music from others. And hearing all of these performances from around the best of European cities certainly influenced him. You will notice in the first movement of his requiem, there are some references to Handel's funeral anthem for Queen Caroline. And the great musicologist Christophe Wolf wrote that Mozart was influenced on every page of his requiem by J. S.
Dr. Sinclair:Bach. After returning to Salzburg, Leopold got Wolfgang a position in the court. But Wolfgang hated the restrictions, and he as he viewed Salzburg as boring. After he had traveled around other cities, Leopold suggested another tour, but the new archbishop's reaction was to fire both the father and the son. Well, Leopold did get reinstated, but one must remember the tour was probably not as good idea.
Dr. Sinclair:Because by now, Wolfgang was not that cute little performer, but a gawky, pockmarked faced teenager whose skills were exemplary, but not novelty anymore. Nevertheless, Wolfgang and his mother set out for Paris, stopping through Mannheim to hear from the Mannheim School method of string writing and playing, mainly by Johann Stamets. And this is where he learned what we in the music world call the Mozartian sigh. He also met a young singer, Aloisia Weber. His father quickly and sternly scolded him telling him to not throw his musical ambitions away for a soprano.
Dr. Sinclair:Well, finally arriving in Paris, they had very little success in securing concerts. And then his mother got ill. She refused to see a French doctor, and she died. It took Mozart almost a week before notifying his father, and this guilt followed him the rest of his life. I'm not sure his father ever forgave him, and it weighed heavily on him that a a good adult father and son relationship never developed before his father died.
Dr. Sinclair:It seems his father also really never forgave him for marrying, finding out later that all of Leopold's inheritance was given to his sister, Nannerl. His next stop was Munich, where he once again met Aloisa. This time, he asked her to marry him. She declined. He did travel with the archbishop to Vienna though, where the archbishop wanted to return to Salzburg, and Mozart objected and was literally booted out of the court with the archbishop calling him a scoundrel and a fool.
Dr. Sinclair:And Mozart's response was, quote, Salzburg, it's now nothing to me except for the opportunity to give the archbishop a kick even if it were in the public street. Now he needed a place to live, so he rented from no other than the Weber family, minus Aloisa. There he met her sister, Constance, and he fell in love. Within a few months, he asked her to marry him. All this once again to the disdain and the rants of the overbearing father, Leopold, who finally gave in.
Dr. Sinclair:Well, his life in Vienna wasn't without struggles. He was a freelance composer and performer. And for most of his life in Vienna, he had somewhat of a comfortable living, But it was from hustling, living from hand to mouth, only making his money from teaching, composing, or performing. But neither he or Constance were frugal or wise with money. And financially, Mozart faced challenges despite his talent and fame, leading to periods of frustration, believing he deserved a lucrative appointment.
Dr. Sinclair:Interestingly, in the year before his death, he thought he would finally become the capelmeister of Saint Stephen's Church in Vienna. Of course, this never happened. It is important to note that Mozart was known as much during his lifetime as a virtuoso pianoforte player, as composer. He also was an accomplished organist, violinist, singer, viola player. The famous pianist Clemente, who briefly studied with Mozart and many believed was his virtuosic equal, said, I had never heard anyone perform with such spirit or grace.
Dr. Sinclair:And another contemporary wrote, his admirable dexterity with particularly his left hand and the bass were considerably quite dexterity with particularly his left hand and the bass were considerably quite unique. His feeling and delicacy and beautiful expression were the attractions of his playing. His home life was on occasion tumultuous, but by most indications, he and Constance were happy and in love. They had 6 children with only 2 boys making it to adulthood. And it was reported that their house was often unkempt.
Dr. Sinclair:Now many of us have a vision of Mozart as portrayed in stage or the movie Amadeus. By the way, that was 40 years ago. And while the movie allowed the general public to hear this magnificent music, there was a great deal of fiction taking place. For example, Salieri started as a rival but became a friend. Ashley Salieri was a very well respected composer in his day and even visited Mozart while he was dying.
Dr. Sinclair:As an adult, Mozart was a mix of charisma, eccentricity, while emotionally complex. He was playful and possessed an irreverent sense of humor, which often came through in his correspondence and interactions. He was off putting to many, and he did not lack for self confidence in his musical abilities. Passionate about his music, he worked obsessively about compositions, but he also enjoyed socializing and attending parties. He thought of himself as an excellent dancer.
Dr. Sinclair:He told his friends he danced better than he composed. By the way, he also loved to play billiards. Mozart's behavior could also be called impulsive. He was known to express strong emotions openly, whether joy or frustration. This blend of creativity, charm, volatility made him a captivating and polarizing figure.
Dr. Sinclair:And today, we tend to confuse the elegance of Mozart's music and the perception that he was refined and sophisticated in his personal life. I'm not sure that's an accurate portrayal. His letters to family and friends were often crude and vulgar, and notes to his wife could be made into an r rated miniseries. The friend and student Johann Hummel described Mozart as a small, thin build. He was pale.
Dr. Sinclair:His facial features were pleasant and friendly combined with something of a melancholy seriousness. His large blue eyes gleamed brightly. In a circle of good friends, he could also be merry, lively, and witty. Sometimes, he could be sarcastic about sundry matters. Another friend wrote that he had an abundance of fine, fair hair, and he was rather vain.
Dr. Sinclair:We all know Mozart as a prolific composer. Accounts abound about him writing his works in his head, then placing him on paper with rarely choosing to revise. On the way to his requiem, he wrote 41 symphonies, 22 operas, 35 to charity, of which 27 were for piano, 23 string quartets, lots of chamber music, 18 masses, many other choral works, leaders, serenades, etcetera. He even wrote for cuckoo clocks. His requiem is number 626
Dr. Sinclair:in the
Dr. Sinclair:list of compositions. Let's also address the myths surrounding Mozart's death, funeral and interment. Constance, her sister Sophie and a doctor, the 3 present at the time of his death. Mozart's friend Baron Gottfried Zweiten arrived in the middle of the night, and medical science in those days had no idea the actual sources of many diseases. So his death certificate was listed as acute military fever.
Dr. Sinclair:Since Constance was hysterical, Berence Whiting began the funeral arrangements, but only after Count Joseph Dam took a plastered death mask of Mozart. He was told for an eventual wax museum that the death mask has never surfaced. Because he was so swollen at the time of his death, the untrue rumors of poison were started. Legend would make December 6th, the day of the funeral, rainy and cold. Well, it was actually mild and misty.
Dr. Sinclair:And in the early afternoon, the body was taken from the house a few blocks to St. Stephen's Cathedral. The bell tolled. The crossbearer walked at the head. Four men in long cloaks carried the coffin covered with a black cloth.
Dr. Sinclair:The service for the few mourners was held at a little chapel built against the wall outside the cathedral. And after a short service, the pallbearers who were believed to include composer Seussmeyer, Salieri, Albrecht's Burger, and freemason friends loaded the coffin on a wagon for the trip to his encounter. There were no mourners going with the body or a graveside service, and this was due to new laws put in place by Emperor Joseph. And while the exact grave is not known, it is now believed that he was not placed in a mass grave. Now while elaborate funerals took place in Vienna, Constance was advised to pay for the least expenses given the uncertain of our finances going forward.
Dr. Sinclair:The range of funerals were from a 100 florins to 8 florins. Constance paid for the 8 florins, probably about $400 by our standards today. She also had to pay for the wagon and the priest. By the way, most citizens in Vienna took that less expensive option, and Constance was so distraught she was unable to attend the funeral. As a widow of 29 with 2 young children and a sizable debt, Constance petitioned the emperor for a small pension, which was granted.
Dr. Sinclair:And by shrewdly marketing Mozart's music and undertaking concert tours with her sister, now separated from her husband, she managed to clear the debts in surprisingly few years. As the years passed, she became a wealthy woman. Her sons were educated in a boarding school in Prague. And in 18/09, at age 47, Constance married George Nicholas Nissen, a Danish diplomat she met in 17/97 when he rented a room for them. After much travel, they settled in Salzburg where Nissen began writing a biography of Mozart completed by Constance after his death.
Dr. Sinclair:Constance continued to work to become a champion of the music and memory of Mozart. When Constance died in Salzburg at age 70 in 1842, this means she lived 51 years beyond Mozart. She and her sons bequeathed all Mozart's memorabilia that they possess to the foundation we now call the Mozartan. Now let's go back to Vienna in 17/91, and let's continue our story at the requiem. Mozart was no stranger to illness with a long history of upper respiratory and staph infections, in addition to other conditions such as rheumatic fever.
Dr. Sinclair:His already precarious health declined rapidly during the final few months of his life with just over the last 2 weeks spent bedridden while dictating the requiem. Notes left by Mozart's doctors have led current day physicians to theorize that he died from a combination of strep infection, renal failure, cerebral hemorrhage, and pneumonia. Well, in July of 17, 91, 5 months before his death, a stranger wearing a mask and a long dark cape presented an already weak and compromised Mozart with a letter commissioning a requiem. After the composer agreed to the project, the stranger returned a few days later providing half of the fee, with the remainder to be paid when the composition was delivered. Mozart immediately start to sketch out the work with the underlying belief that he was writing a mass for his own death.
Dr. Sinclair:Adding to the immediacy of the project, His efforts were interrupted for a need to finish other projects including his little masonic cantata, his beautiful clarinet concerto, and to prepare for the magic flute for its premiere September 30. As validated by a letter to his librettist ponte, Mozart was fully engaged in other pressing work, but the requiem was never far from his mind. He wrote, quote, my head is confused. It is only with difficulty that I can keep my thoughts collected. The image of that stranger will not part my eyes.
Dr. Sinclair:I always see him before me. He asks. He urges me. He impatiently demands the work for me. I continue because composing tires me less than rest.
Dr. Sinclair:I feel it. My condition tells me. My hour has struck. I shall have to die, so I am finishing my funeral dirge. I must not leave it incomplete.
Dr. Sinclair:At 55 minutes past midnight on December 5th, 17, 91, Mozart died with his requiem unfinished, leaving his wife, Constance, scrambling to find someone to complete the work so she could collect on the commission. Past student and friend, Franz Xavier Susmaier, who visited the composer often for his final illness, eventually took over the task. And now the tale gets deeper. The mysterious stranger negotiating the requiem was representing count Franz von Walzick, who intended to take the famed composer's music and pass it off as his own. The work was finally performed by Walzick in December of 17, 93, sadly, in remembrance of his recently departed wife.
Dr. Sinclair:But in time, Valsig admitted the work was Mozart's. Except for his operatic writing, Mozart's composition from June 17 91 forward, including Ave Verum Corpus and Requiem, reflect a sustained seriousness rarely found in his earlier pieces. Such frenzied and profound treatment of the work bears evidence of a frightened and fragile man in his last days. Composing the opening of a large scale work might be compared to writing the first sentence of a novel with the attempt to draw the audience in and to provide a glimpse of what might be in store. Mozart doesn't disappoint.
Dr. Sinclair:He is predictably unpredictable with the solemn, but understated opening, few phrases, while saving the ominous tone for the choir's entrance. He succeeds in making the first two movements feverishly intense, and one can only imagine how careful he was in creating such a sense of expectation. The steady pace of the beginning feels like a deliberate and slow ascent to the impending death with a gentle pause allowing us to catch our breath before charging into the assertive Kyrie section. This section provides Mozart with 2 compositional opportunities. 1st, through the text, he earnestly gets to plead for mercy while secondly showing off his mastery of fugal writing.
Dr. Sinclair:Mozart's writing tells us he's not going to go to the grave quietly. Then the dramatic, deus, eerie movement that follows accomplishes the fearfulness Mozart depicts in the facing of the day of wrath. Next, in the stately Tubemirim, a trombone soul summons all before the throne only to move to an aggressive Rex Tremendae, king of fearful majesty movement, which ends with the choir pleading, save me. The next movement, Micredadore, elegantly allows solvents to remind Christ to not cast me out that day. But it's during the La crema sce where the mystery starts to deepen.
Dr. Sinclair:Many scholars concur that though the first eight measures of this movement are pure Mozart, for more than 2 centuries later, we're not really sure where Sussemaier finished or where Mozart ended or if the remainder of this was all Mozart or all Sussemeyer. Interestingly, the last words we know for sure Mozart set were, oh, how tearful that day. Spare them, oh god. The offatorium section includes a frantic with the text asking the king of glory to liberate the souls. And now the movement where the music gently requests the dead to pass to eternal life.
Dr. Sinclair:The powerful songtuse movement is formulaic actually. It's rather typical rhythmic songtoose ending with an exuberant hosanna. And the Benedictus movement's structure is also predictable, given this part of the requiem is often sung by soloists and ends with the choir reprising the Hosanna refrain. The Augusteis section treats the text, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant them peace, with an uncharacteristic urgency. What happens next is truly unique and quite brilliant.
Dr. Sinclair:Susmar allows the work to end as it began using Mozart's musical ideas with a different text. To me, there are only a few moments that don't feel quite Mozartian, so it is difficult to believe that a composer such as Susmar, whose music was considered not so exemplary even in his own time, could have taken and completed a masterpiece by Mozart and finished it so beautifully. So you'll have to count me among those who believe that the Master shared his vision and ideas before his death. Actually, accounts by Constant's sister, Sophie, state that Mozart shared with Hussammar how to finish the work, even gave him pieces of paper with music on it. And Abbe Stadler, a contemporary musician of Mozart, and his friend who helped Constance settle her estate wrote, all movements, quote, bear such internal proof of this having been written by Mozart that I never for a moment believed they could have been produced by another composer, especially such an obscure writer as Sussemaier.
Dr. Sinclair:Two final bits of evidence, Constance was so angry with Susse Meyer years later, she renamed one of their sons Wolfgang and took away Franz from the name. And finally, Beethoven and Haydn both would not entertain the idea that anyone but Mozart had finished this record. Mozart's instrumental choices are intriguing. He uses basset horns, but he had just finished his divine clarinet concerto, So why not use clarinets? One could only speculate that the basset horn was chosen for its lower and more melancholy sound.
Dr. Sinclair:The same reason why J. S. Bach uses the viola da gamba in his passion settings. Both instruments produce a mournfulness other instruments just don't possess, but noticeably absent in the score are flutes, oboes, and horns. Well, friends, Mozart's music is as relevant today as it was over 200 years ago, and the commonality of emotion he was expressing are timeless.
Dr. Sinclair:This work was personal for him. He literally died working on it, and all that is required from us is to listen. Just breathe it in. Mozart will be the best. Thank you so very much for joining us today, and I hope you enjoyed our discussion of mister Mozart and his mysterious record.
Dr. Sinclair:Please consider subscribing and write me with ideas and questions, and check out the notes for more details. I hope to have the privilege of your time again. And always remember that music can provide a space for your mind and your spirit to flourish and that the power of music belongs to each of us. So for now, goodbye. I hope you join us next time.
Voiceover:Thank you for listening to the Insights and Sounds podcast. The show is hosted by doctor John Sinclair. Production and editing are done by David Palacios. For a look into what music was played during this episode, make sure to check out the show notes. Lastly, make sure to visit our website, insightsandsounds.com.
Voiceover:Thank you for listening.