The early death of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart, on December 5, 1791, at the age of 35, is still closely linked in the popular imagination to the film
Amadeus
. Miloš Forman's Oscar-winning 1984 film, which adapts Peter Shaffer's play of the same name, includes a popular sequence where we see the dying composer dictating the
Confutatis
of his unfinished
Requiem
to the supposed villain Salieri. An iconic moment that serves Miguel Ángel Marín as the literary start of the opening chapter of his recent monograph
Mozart's 'Requiem'. A cultural history
(Cliff).
But the cover of this voluminous essay of more than 500 pages reflects its content much better. A fragment of the painting
The Last Moments of Mozart
(1884-85), by Mihály Munkácsy, where the same scene is represented, although based on the description published, in 1827, by the tenor Benedikt Schack (Tamino in the premiere of
The Magic Flute
). On the left we see Schack himself singing alongside bassist Franz Xaver Gerl (Sarastro in that same premiere). Seated at the harpsichord is Franz Xaver Süßmayr (responsible for concluding
his teacher's
Requiem
). The central figure is Franz de Paula Roser (another disciple of Mozart) and an outstretched arm of the composer is glimpsed. Finally, Baron Gottfried van Swieten (an intellectual reference for Mozart and organizer of the first complete hearing of the
Requiem
in 1793) watches us from the background and, at his side, Emanuel Schikaneder (librettist of
The Magic Flute
) talks with the doctor.
Left out of our vision is the body of the sickly composer, powerless to finish his last work, along with the subsidiary place occupied by his wife Constanze and his son Karl Thomas, located to the right. The image evokes the first time the music of the
Requiem
was played , but also the iconographic popularity that the representation of Mozart's death acquired in the 19th century along with the immortal work status of his last unfinished score. Not by chance, the public exhibition of this immense painting, measuring three by four metres, which took place in a Parisian gallery in February 1886 was accompanied by a hearing of the
Requiem
for keyboard and voices with the musicians hidden behind the canvas.
This book explains how Mozart's death and his
Requiem
have become icons of our culture. A problematic work where the composer had only finished the
Requiem Aeternam
introit along with a fairly precise sketch from the
Kyrie
to the
Hostias
. A mythical story about his relationship with an “anonymous emissary” and the suspicions generated by the unexpected death of his creator. And a massive reception that, once completed by Süßmayr, made it the favorite funeral music at the funerals of many personalities, including such renowned colleagues as Haydn, Weber, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Rossini and Berlioz.
Different proposal
The proposal of this monograph therefore transcends the usual history of music. And, in addition to narrating the vicissitudes of the composition and completion of the
Requiem
, most of its pages embark us on a fascinating story about its dissemination and reception from Vienna to the rest of the world. The author does so by covering a period known as the long 19th century, that is, the period from the last phase of the 18th century Enlightenment to the years prior to the First World War.
This editorial novelty also has an added interest. Acantilado, far from translating the umpteenth Anglo-Saxon editorial novelty on the subject, which could be exemplified by Simon P. Keefe's monograph,
Mozart's Requiem: Reception, Work, Completion
(Cambridge University Press, 2012), has opted for the national product. We are talking about a generation of Spanish musicologists who also write about the great composers and combine university teaching with high dissemination. It is exemplified by Marín (Úbeda, 51 years old) as a professor at the University of La Rioja and responsible for the innovative musical programming of the Juan March Foundation.
His monograph combines the benefits of prestigious Anglo-Saxon musicology (the author received his doctorate from the University of London) with the concerns of our cultural history. In fact, the most interesting contribution of this book focuses on demonstrating the importance that Mozart's
Requiem
had in Spanish musical life, which was not so different from other countries around us such as France, Portugal, Italy or Great Britain, with that double aspect as linked to the temple as to the concert hall. He even transcends the Atlantic to verify the trace of Mozart's mass for the dead in the New World, from New York to Santiago de Chile.
The book opens with an extensive prologue by Juan José Carreras, professor at the University of Zaragoza and teacher of several musicologists of the author's generation. An essay that distances Mozart's music from the classicist cliché of beauty and balance, and orients it towards the culture of his time, that is, the southern German Catholic Enlightenment and the aesthetics of early Romanticism. His reflections lead to a better understanding of the success that the
Requiem
had in the 19th century associated with the romantic reconstruction of the figure of Mozart and the massive reception of his opera
Don Giovanni
, which also radiated in Spain. For example, Marín comments on a novel concert commemorating the centenary of that opera that was held on November 4, 1887, at the Teatro Real, and which featured fragments of
Don Giovanni
and the
Requiem
along with other testimonies of late Mozart, such as the
Jupiter Symphony
and the
Quintet K. 516
(pp. 266-70).
The author divides the book into 20 chapters grouped into five blocks. In the first (pp. 49-141) we find a brilliant and accessible introduction to the problems of the work and its global reception without renouncing rigor and erudition. And, in the four remaining blocks (pp. 142-434), the story focuses on Spain. From the first testimonies of Mozart's music in this country, when the composer was still alive, to the foreseeable Spanish premiere of the
Requiem
, which took place in Seville and Madrid, around 1806, that is, six years after Berlin, five of London, three from Lisbon and two from Paris. But also its dimension as a cultural phenomenon that made it the favorite music for funeral and patriotic honors, which justifies its early hearing in Malaga, in 1808, and shortly after in peripheral centers such as Orihuela and Olot.
The second half of the book is the most ambitious in trying to history the
Requiem
as a sound manifestation. Marín talks about how it was interpreted and adapted to the possibilities of each musical center, but also about how it was heard. Of his hearing as an apotheotic experience that transfigured the spirit and elevated art to the level of religion. A mystical aura that justified the nickname of the “divine Mozart” that we read, for example, in a review of the
Requiem
sung by the tenor Julián Gayarre, in 1886, in memory of King Alfonso XII (page 319).
The book closes with a large section dedicated to the musical sources of the
Requiem
preserved in different Spanish cities. A detailed study of each copy in relation to the available editions and local history. It ranges from the Malaga manuscripts, from 1806 and 1808, to a copy preserved in Jaén, from 1903, with an imaginative arrangement that replaces the two pairs of
bassetto corni
and bassoons with flute, clarinet, French horn and euphonium. This also includes the study of the copy preserved in the cathedral of Pamplona, from 1844, which was the first thread that the author pulled until completing this admirable study. But the end of it is open and, culminating in the first years of the 20th century, it leaves the door open to the emergence of phonography and more media to come. Another book that will have to explain how we arrived at the aforementioned sequence from the film
Amadeus
.
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