As the author explains in his introduction, this is not another
scholarly
monograph but rather an extended programme note for the
non-specialist
music lover. It is clear and very readable; and one of its
strengths is that
it is not simply a re-telling of a familiar story, but has some
fascinating
new ideas to offer. Count Wallsegg not only ordered a Requiem
from Mozart in
memory of his wife, but also a monument by a leading Vienna
sculptor (who
charged considerably more than Mozart for his work). The monument
no longer
exists, but Leeson includes a photograph of a similar tomb by the
same
sculptor (for Field-Marshal von Laudon), which may have served as
a model.
There is even what purports to be a daguerreoype of an elderly
Constanze
Mozart, said to have been taken in 1840! Leeson also has an
ingenious theory
to explain why Süssmayr was not, as has sometimes been rumoured,
the father
of the Mozarts' younger son Franz Xaver Wolfgang (though as far
as I know
this preposterous notion was first articulated only about thirty
years ago).
He suggests that Süssmayr was a homosexual: the two Englishmen
who wanted to
engage him 'to clean their lamps' (Mozart's letter of 2 July
1791) may have
been seeking a rather different service, and the reference to
Süssmayr in
the same letter as 'Lacci Bacci' could be a mis-spelling of a
suggestive
Hungarian expression 'Laci bácsi' (literally 'Uncle Les', but
with less
innocent overtones).
Inevitably, the fragmentary and sometimes contradictory nature of
much of
the evidence allows various possible interpretations, but
Leeson's
conclusions are always well argued. I frequently found myself
nodding in
agreement, especially where he is sceptical about reports which
many would
accept uncritically. The idea that Süssmayr had access to
Mozart's sketches
is, as Leeson points out, based on unreliable hearsay evidence
(so too, for
that matter, is the story about a run-through in the afternoon
before Mozart
died). The notion that Süssmayr received any detailed oral
instructions from
Mozart is dismissed as 'simply not credible'. And, as Leeson
says, the fact
that Süssmayr's and Mozart's movements have a few melodic
fragments in
common does not of itself prove anything. In one respect I would
go further:
to a large extent Süssmayr's score is not the fair copy that
Leeson
suggests, but the working score itself. One can often make out
preliminary
versions that had to be revised, or tentative ideas that proved
to be
unworkable and had to be abandoned - which in itself would be
hard to square
with Süssmayr's having used any Mozartian material, in whatever
form.
Süssmayr made two attempts, for example, at devising a subject
for the
Osanna fugue, which he would surely not have done if Mozart
himself had
given him a start.
Leeson's response to the commonly held view that Süssmayr's
additional
movements are too good to be his own unaided work is to point out
that we
know little or nothing of his music on which to base such an
opinion, and in
any case he could conceivably have risen above his usual level of
creativity
on this occasion. However, one piece of church music is available
in print
which he wrote at the time he was working on the Requiem: his
setting of
*Ave verum corpus*, dated 9 June 1792 (OUP, 1988). The model was
obviously
Mozart's own setting (K. 618), and there is no doubting the
inferiority -
and lack of technical competence - of Süssmayr's version. It has
much in
common with his movements for the Requiem which, with the
possible exception
of the Agnus Dei, have always seemed to me to fall way below the
creative
and technical standards of the rest of the work. Far from being
'too good
for Süssmayr', they are not nearly good enough for Mozart, and it
is wishful
thinking to believe otherwise.
The generally accepted story is that Constanze first invited
Joseph Eybler
to complete the Requiem (he signed a formal contract on 21
December 1791),
and only after Eybler had given up did she turn to Süssmayr.
Leeson sees
this sequence of events as contradictory: 'Süssmayr should have
been asked
first', partly because he and another (possibly Franz Jakob
Freystädtler)
had already had experience in completing the Kyrie, supposedly in
preparation for a memorial service for Mozart on 10 December,
only five days
after his death. It is certainly odd that the Kyrie orchestration
apparently
pre-dates Eybler's work (why otherwise would he have started with
the Dies
Irae?), but the evidence for a performance on 10 December is
pretty meagre
and comes only from a newspaper report that states - obviously
wrongly -
that the whole of the Requiem was performed then. In any case,
Süssmayr's
trumpets and drums, whose parts are all that he contributed to
the Kyrie,
could just as well have been added later. In my opinion there's
no problem:
Süssmayr had no special status and Eybler was chosen first
because he was
the most competent musician available. Probably Süssmayr had no
formal
lessons from Mozart: Constanze's statement in 1829 that he was a
pupil of
Salieri is confirmed by a Viennese newspaper advertisement of 10
July 1793
for the première of the opera *L'incanto superato*, 'with music
by Herr
Franz Siessmayr, pupil of Herr Salieri'.
To my mind, Leeson is rather too apt to accuse Constanze of
deliberately
creating confusion and misinformation about the Requiem, and it
is certainly
going too far to describe her as a 'scheming, unscrupulous,
selfish and
dishonest woman' (p. 25). True, she may have deceived Wallsegg to
the extent of
delivering a complete score as if it were all by her late
husband, though
there is no evidence that she actually said as much, and it is
possible that
she did not realize at the time how extensive Süssmayr's work
was. Some of
the apparently contradictory statements she made thirty or more
years after
the event, too, could more charitably be ascribed to failing
memory, no
doubt influenced by the writings of others such as Maximilian
Stadler.
Curiously, however, Süssmayr's own statement seems to be accepted
at face
value despite his extraordinary claim that the Requiem was 'a
work whose
greater part is mine'.
Despite these differences of opinion - and it is impossible to
write
anything about the Requiem without being controversial - I much
enjoyed
Leeson's book, and applaud the common sense and sober judgment it
brings to
a subject with a remarkable ability to generate lurid
fictionalized accounts
- two specimens of which are included by way of entertainment.
Just to set the record straight: I have never been a member of
Oxford
University (p. 144), and my edition of the Requiem does not
eliminate
Süssmayr's Sanctus, Osanna and Benedictus (p. 145), for they are
included in
an Appendix. One solution to the problem of liturgical
incompleteness is
simply to use plainsong settings instead. It seemed to work well
in a
performance I directed some years ago.
. . . Richard Maunder
Early Music Review, London
February 2005