The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a requiem mass written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year.

A completed version dated 1792 by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who commissioned the piece for a Requiem service to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's death on 14 February.

The autograph manuscript shows the finished and orchestrated Introit in Mozart's hand, and detailed drafts of the Kyrie and the sequence Dies irae as far as the first eight bars of the "Lacrimosa" movement, and the Offertory.

It cannot be shown to what extent Süssmayr may have depended on now lost "scraps of paper" for the remainder; he later claimed the Sanctus and Agnus Dei as his own. Walsegg probably intended to pass the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart's widow Constanze. She was responsible for a number of stories surrounding the composition of the work, including the claims that Mozart received the commission from a mysterious messenger who did not reveal the commissioner's identity, and that Mozart came to believe that he was writing the requiem for his own funeral.

The Requiem is scored for 2 basset horns in F, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones (alto, tenor & bass), timpani (2 drums), violins, viola and basso continuo (cello, double bass, and organ). The vocal forces include soprano, contralto, tenor, and bass soloists and an SATB mixed choir.

Fact #1. Who commissioned the Requiem?

The count Franz von Walsegg commissioned the Requiem from Mozart anonymously through intermediaries. The count, an amateur chamber musician who routinely commissioned works by composers and passed them off as his own, wanted a Requiem Mass he could claim he composed to memorialize the recent passing of his wife.

Mozart received only half of the payment in advance, so upon his death his widow Constanze was keen to have the work completed secretly by someone else, submit it to the count as having been completed by Mozart and collect the final payment.

Fact #2. Who finished the Requiem?

Joseph von Eybler was one of the first composers to be asked to complete the score, and had worked on the movements from the Dies irae up until the Lacrymosa. In addition, a striking similarity between the openings of the Domine Jesu Christe movements in the requiems of the two composers suggests that Eybler at least looked at later sections. After this work, he felt unable to complete the remainder, and gave the manuscript back to Constanze Mozart.

The task was then given to another composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Süssmayr borrowed some of Eybler's work in making his completion, and added his own orchestration to the movements from the Kyrie onward, completed the Lacrymosa, and added several new movements which a Requiem would normally comprise: Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei.

He then added a final section, Lux aeterna by adapting the opening two movements which Mozart had written to the different words which finish the Requiem mass, which according to both Süssmayr and Mozart's wife was done according to Mozart's directions. Some people consider it unlikely, however, that Mozart would have repeated the opening two sections if he had survived to finish the work.

Other composers may have helped Süssmayr. The Agnus Dei is suspected by some scholars to have been based on instruction or sketches from Mozart because of its similarity to a section from the Gloria of a previous mass (Sparrow Mass, K. 220) by Mozart, as was first pointed out by Richard Maunder. Others have pointed out that in the beginning of the Agnus Dei the choral bass quotes the main theme from the Introitus. Many of the arguments dealing with this matter, though, center on the perception that if part of the work is high quality, it must have been written by Mozart (or from sketches), and if part of the work contains errors and faults, it must have been all Süssmayr's doing.

Another controversy is the suggestion (originating from a letter written by Constanze) that Mozart left explicit instructions for the completion of the Requiem on "little scraps of paper." The extent to which Süssmayr's work may have been influenced by these "scraps" if they existed at all remains a subject of speculation amongst musicologists to this day.

Fact #3. There Exists Some Modern Completions of The Requiem

In the 1960s a sketch for an Amen fugue was discovered, which some musicologists (Levin, Maunder) believe belongs to the Requiem at the conclusion of the sequence after the Lacrymosa. H. C. Robbins Landon argues that this Amen fugue was not intended for the Requiem, rather that it "may have been for a separate unfinished mass in D minor" to which the Kyrie K. 341 also belonged. There is, however, compelling evidence placing the "Amen Fugue" in the Requiem  based on current Mozart scholarship. First, the principal subject is the main theme of the requiem (stated at the beginning, and throughout the work) in strict inversion. Second, it is found on the same page as a sketch for the Rex tremendae (together with a sketch for the overture of his last opera The Magic Flute), and thus surely dates from late 1791. The only place where the word 'Amen' occurs in anything that Mozart wrote in late 1791 is in the sequence of the Requiem. Third, as Levin points out in the foreword to his completion of the Requiem, the addition of the Amen Fugue at the end of the sequence results in an overall design that ends each large section with a fugue.

Since the 1970s several composers and musicologists, dissatisfied with the traditional "Süssmayr" completion, have attempted alternative completions of the Requiem. Each version follows a distinct methodology for completion:

• Franz Beyer – makes revisions to Süssmayr's orchestration in an attempt to create a more Mozartian style and makes a few minor changes to Süssmayr's sections (i.e. lengthening the Osanna fugue slightly for a more conclusive sounding ending).
• H. C. Robbins Landon – orchestrates parts of the completion using the partial work by Eybler, thinking that Eybler's work is a more reliable guide of Mozart's intentions.
• Richard Maunder – dispenses completely with the parts known to be written by Süssmayr, but retains the Agnus Dei after discovering an extensive paraphrase from an earlier mass (Sparrow Mass, K. 220). Recomposes the Lacrymosa from bar 9 onwards, and includes a completion of the Amen fugue.
• Duncan Druce – makes slight changes in orchestration, but retains Eybler's ninth and tenth measures of the Lacrymosa, lengthening the movement substantially to end in the "Amen Fugue". He also completely rewrites the Benedictus, only retaining the opening theme.
• Robert D. Levin and Simon Andrews – each retain the structure of Süssmayr while adjusting orchestration, voice leading and in some cases rewriting entire sections in an effort to make the work more Mozartean.
• Pánczél Tamás – makes revisions to Süssmayr's score in a manner similar to Beyer, but extends the Lacrymosa significantly past Süssmayr's passages and rewrites the Benedictus's ending leading into the Osanna reprise.
• Clemens Kemme – orchestration rewritten in a style closer to Eybler's, emphasing the basset horns in particular, with a reworked Sanctus, Benedictus and extended Osanna fugue.
• Benjamin-Gunnar Cohrs – provides an entirely new instrumentation, based on Eybler's ideas, new elaborations of the Amen and Osanna fugues, and a new continuity of the Lacrymosa (after b. 18), Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei, following those bars of which Dr. Cohrs assumes Mozart might have sketched himself.
• Masaaki Suzuki – follows a methodology similar to Robbins Landon, but with further stylistic elaboration on Süssmayr's sections.
• Marius Flothuis – revision of Süssmayr's version via removal of vocal doubling, rewriting of the trombone parts and the harmonic transition to the Osanna reprise in the Benedictus.
• Timothy Jones – reworking of the Lacrymosa, composition of an extensive Amen fugue modeled on the "Cum sancto spiritu" fugue from the Great Mass in C minor, K. 427, and a long elaboration on Süssmayr's Osanna fugue.
• Michael Finnissy – takes the Süssmayr completion as its basis and adheres to Mozart's scoring. Of the five movements newly completed by Finnissy the Lacrymosa has been written in Mozartian style while the four final movements represent an exploration of musical styles since Mozart's death in 1791.
• Knud Vad – follows Süssmayr's completion until the Sanctus and Benedictus which are noticeably rewritten in places (i.e. Osanna turned into a double fugue played adagio)
• Gregory Spears – includes a new "Sanctus", "Benedictus" and "Agnus Dei" designed to replace the Süssmayr completion of those movements. Spears's completion recognizes the juxtaposition of old and new sources common in liturgical music of the period, and incorporates two cadential fragments from Süssmayr's completion into the end of his "Benedictus" and "Agnus Dei".
• Letho Kostoglou (Australian musicologist) – utilises primarily music composed by Mozart. It was performed at Adelaide Town Hall on 4 September 2010. This edition was endorsed by Richard Bonynge and Patrick Thomas.
• Pierre-Henri Dutron's edits are largely a revision of Süssmayr's version. Sanctus and Benedictus significantly rewritten from opening themes onward. Creative liberties are taken with regard to the dispersion of the vocal material between the chorus and soloists. This version was used by conductor René Jacobs for his performances given at the end of 2016.
• Michael Ostrzyga – takes an approach similar to Levin's in correcting Sussmayr's work but retaining some of it, completing the Amen fugue and composing further Mozartean material where needed.
• Gordon Kerry was commissioned by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to write a completion.

In the Levin, Andrews, Druce and Cohrs versions, the Sanctus fugue is completely rewritten and re-proportioned and the Benedictus is restructured to allow for a reprise of the Sanctus fugue in the key of D (rather than Süssmayr's use of B-flat).

As detailed above, many composers attempting a completion use the sketch for the Amen fugue discovered in the 1960s to compose a longer and more substantial setting to conclude the sequence.

In the Süssmayr version, "Amen" is set as a plagal cadence with a Picardy third (iv–I in D minor) at the end of the Lacrymosa: the Andrews version uses the Süssmayr ending. 

Jones combines the two, ending his Amen fugue with a variation on the concluding bars of Süssmayr's Lacrymosa as well as the aforementioned plagal cadence.

Which version of the Requiem do you like? I still like the Süssmayr version!

3 Facts About Mozart's Requiem You Still Didn't Know

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