Mozart, Requiem K. 626

The Requiem is not only Mozart's last composition, but also the one most shrouded in mystery. The purportedly enigmatic patron who ordered the work and the fatal illness that befell Mozart while he was working on it long nurtured the macabre legend of Mozart composing his own Requiem mass commissioned by Death himself. The Requiem was completed by Mozart's friend and pupil Franz Saver Süssmayr on the basis of Mozart's sketches and instructions. The somber woodwinds and brass, the artless melodies and the stirring shifts from intricate contrapuntal writing to mighty homophonic blocks convey an otherworldly, apocalyptic feeling seldom encountered in Mozart's works. Despite its almost operatic solo passages and large orchestra, the Requiem was intended for the church, and is indeed an ideal work for the theatrically sumptuous and brilliant Baroque churches of Austria and southern Germany. The abbey church in Diessen (Bavaria) is a splendid example: completely rebuilt in the early 18th century by one of the leading South-German Baroque architects, it provides an admirable setting for Leonard Bernstein's sensitive conducting of the Requiem. This production, which the Maestro dedicated to his wife Felicia Montealegre on the tenth anniversary of her death, is a moving and memorable tribute to commemorate Mozart's and others' deaths.