J. S. BACH Jonathan Berkahn - Victoria University - Victoria ...

up to Mozart’s standard, the melodic content is not far off at all. 71
Most intriguing—disturbing, even—is the situation of the Lacrymosa. Mozart
was able to draft eight bars before he died: they may have been the last bars he wrote.
Süssmayr completed the remaining twenty two. And it is, I think, very difficult to tell
the difference. One might compare Sechter’s completion of the fugues K.153/375f
and 154/385k (discussed pp.277-8), where the joins are equally hard to detect and
where the completion is at least comparable to the torso. But there Mozart was
working at fairly low creative pressure, within a restricted style, at which Sechter was
arguably more competent than Mozart (at that stage in his career at least). The
Lacrymosa on the other hand is an intensely expressive movement, showing a high
degree of melodic inspiration and harmonic imagination—neither of which flag in any
detectable manner after the point at which Süssmayr, otherwise a nonentity as far as
musical history is concerned, took up the pen. This ability to mimic Mozart’s style
(just as he was, it seems, able to mimic his handwriting) is almost uncanny. Did he
step into Mozart’s shoes in other respects as well? One is reminded of a scurrilous
rumour—almost certainly baseless—that Süssmayr was the real father of Franz Xaver
Wolfgang Mozart fils (1791-1844). Probably not, but there is no doubt that he was, to
an extent, the father of Mozart’s Requiem.
One explanation, advanced by Constanze among others, is that Süssmayr had
the advantage of personal instructions from Mozart, or even fragmentary sketches—
now lost—from which to work. There is however one important respect in which he
71 Süssmayr’s contribution to the Requiem is discussed (and generally damned) in F. Beyer, ‘Mozarts
Komposition zum Requiem. Zur Frage der Erganzung’ Acta Mozartiana 18/2 (1971), 27-33; R.
Maunder, Mozart’s Requiem: on preparing a new edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988); P.
Moseley, ‘Mozart’s Requiem: a revaluation of the evidence’, Journal of the Royal Musical
Association 114/2 (1989), 203-37. R. Levin ‘Zu den von Süßmayr komponierten Sätzen des
Requiems KV 626’, Mozart-Jahrbuch 1991, 475-493; R. Fuhrmann, ‘War Franz Xaver Süßmayr
Mozarts Schüler und Assistent?’ Kongreßbericht zum VII. Internationalen Gewandhaus-
Symposium: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart-Forschung und Praxis im Dienst von Leben, Werk,
Interpretation und Rezeption anläßlich der Gewandhaus-Festtage in Leipzig vom 3. bis 6. Oktober
1991 (Leipzig: Peters, 1993); and W. Gloede, ‘Süssmayrs Requiem-Ergänzungen und das Wort-Ton-
Problem’, Mozart-Jahrbuch 1999, 81-103.
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