Talk:Requiem in D minor, K.626 (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus)

There are 14 movements? O.o --Feldmahler 22:36, 13 June 2006 (CDT)

After some research I found that the number of movements is hard to say definitively, as the way in which the movements are divided vary. Nevertheless, it seems like 14 movements is a reasonable definition, which entails the following movements:

1. Introitus: Requiem
2. Kyrie
3. Sequenz: Dies Irae
4. Sequenz: Tuba Mirum
5. Sequenz: Rex Tremendae
6. Sequenz: Recordare
7. Sequenz: Confutatis
8. Sequenz: Lacrimosa
9. Offertorium: Domine Jesu
10. Offertorium: Hostias
11. Sanctus
12. Benedictus
13. Agnus Dei
14. Communio: Lux Aeterna

If anyone know something to the contrary please correct me.

--Feldmahler 23:00, 13 June 2006 (CDT)

Technically, there are seven parts (the liturgy of the Requiem Mass, as with all Masses, is divided into parts rather than "movements"); the individual breakdown of the sequence, offertory, and Sanctus/Benedictus should be considered subsections of the whole. --Trickwaters 09:25, 9 December 2008 (EST)
Trickwaters, the answer (particularly with the Mozart, but with Requiems in general) is rather complicated.
Mozart, like many other composers, clearly envisaged the Introït and Kyrie (which are two distinct items in the liturgy) to be halves of a single continuous flow of music, interrupted only by a pause on the dominant before the start of the double fugue. It was only marked as a double bar in the Partitur; Mozart didn’t even start on a new page for the second movement, whereas the six movements of the Sequence and the two of the Offertory were all started on new pages.
The NMA notoriously marks the first movement (/Requiem/) as I and the second (the Kyrie is not given a separate movement heading) as II, whereas the six that follow are all subdivisions of III, and I am not the only one to think this perverse. Of course, the Kyrie is such a well-known piece that it’s hard to deny it being described as a piece in its own right rather than the concluding half of a larger work.
To compare the concluding movements: at the end of the Agnus Dei there is a cunning modulation to join onto the Communion sentence (I forget whether Süßmayr started a new page or not :), and as the Communio is a reprise of most of the opening two movements despite being a single liturgical entity, these are lumped together as one movement rather than two. However there are arguments that could be raised whether these should be divided, or joined together with the Agnus...
To compare another well-known Requiem with “problems” about the intentions of the composer, only four of the seven movements of Fauré’s Requiem are from the liturgical mass and several are joined:
1. Introït et Kyrie (the two joined, as the Mozart should be)
2. Offertoire (the Hostias verse is integrated, rather than being a separate movement)
3. Sanctus (sans Benedictus)
4. Pie Jesu (paraphrases the final couplet of the Sequence, with a nod of the head to the Agnus Dei, in the form of a “liturgical motet”)
5. Agnus Dei [et Communio] (Fauré joins them together with a single sustained note in the soprano part)
6. Libera me (Responsory from the burial service)
7. In paradisum (again, a text from the burial service)
Regards, Philip Legge @ © talk 09:30, 10 December 2008 (AEDT)

Completions by...whom?

It would be helpful if uploaders provided the names of who contributed to the completion of the work. It's common knowledge that Mozart never finished the Requiem, but there have been several well-documented attempts at completions before the twentieth century alone, and it would be wise to indicate which completion belongs to whom, if only for those who would rather look at, for example, the Eybler completion rather than the ubiquitous Süßmayr. --Trickwaters 09:25, 9 December 2008 (EST)

I have written extensively on the completion of the Requiem elsewhere, as well as offering a typeset of the Urtext (as far as I have been able to decipher it :)
Be aware, the Eybler “completion” is incomplete, and only consists of additions to the six movements of the Sequence. As is well known, the only addition to the Lacrymosa was a continuation of two bars of the soprano part! Elsewhere Eybler was quite sparing: only string parts are added to the Tuba mirum and Recordare (despite Mozart writing out the ritornello with basset horns at the beginning, Eybler never reuses them; in this instance, Süßmayr’s orchestration is for once an improvement).
There are lengthy sections where Süßmayr re-used Eybler’s string writing, in the four inner movements of the Sequence: the Tuba mirum, Rex tremendæ, Recordare, and Confutatis.
I wasn’t aware there were any attempts at completions in the 19th Century. I think you’ll find the market for Mozart Requiems only really started once Franz Beyer pointed out the numerous errors in Nowak’s Neue Mozart-Ausgabe score (1965), in the early 1970s. The completions I am aware of are as follows:
  • Mozart/Süßmayr (actually as many as six contributors: Wolfgang Amadé Mozart/Franz Jakob Freystädtler/Joseph Leopold von Eybler/Maximilian Stadler/Franz Xäver Süßmayr/Anonymous third contributor to Kyrie; December 1791–February 1792)
  • Franz Beyer (slight revisions to Mozart/Süßmayr, 1971, revised 1979)
  • Duncan Druce (two versions, one essentially the Mozart/Süßmayr, the other a new composition, 1980s, but published 1992)
  • C. Richard F. Maunder (musicologically-based revision, technically omitting the Sanctus and Benedictus, 1988)
  • Howard Chandler Robbins Landon (substantial revisions to first five movements of the Sequence, to align it with Eybler rather than Süßmayr, 1991)
  • Robert D. Levin (new composition using kernel of Mozart’s ideas, 1993)
  • Simon Andrews (completed c. 1996)
  • Tom O’Drisceoil (new composition using kernel of Mozart’s ideas, 2006)
  • Gordon Kerry (I don’t know anything about this one yet, it was performed in Sydney and not yet in Melbourne, 2006)
Regards, Philip Legge @ © talk 09:30–10:00, 10 December 2008 (AEDT)
PS I am very proud of the fact that Tom Driscoll dedicated his completion to me – best regards (and I will try to organise a Australian premiére of it sometime :)