Franz von Walsegg

Franz von Walsegg was born into an aristocratic family in Lower Austria, residing at Schloss Stuppach. A passionate but modestly talented musician, he often staged private performances of works he claimed as his own, some of which were actually by other composers. In 1791, following the death of his young wife Anna, he commissioned a Requiem Mass through an intermediary, Count Walsegg, offering a substantial fee of 50 ducats. The commission was made anonymously, with the intent that Walsegg would present the finished work as his own composition at a memorial service for his wife.

Mozart, already ill and preoccupied with his opera La clemenza di Tito, accepted the commission and began composing the Requiem in Vienna. He worked on it intermittently, but his declining health and eventual death on December 5, 1791, left the work incomplete. Walsegg's identity remained unknown to Mozart, who reportedly grew obsessed with the idea that the anonymous patron was a messenger of death, a notion that fueled later legends.

After Mozart's death, his widow Constanze, facing financial hardship, sought to have the Requiem completed to claim the remaining fee. She turned to several composers, including Joseph Eybler and finally Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who finished the work based on Mozart's sketches and his own knowledge of Mozart's style. Süssmayr's completion, which includes the famous Lacrimosa and the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei, became the standard version performed today.

Walsegg received the completed score in 1792 and performed it at a memorial service for his wife on December 14, 1793, in the Cistercian monastery of Neukloster in Wiener Neustadt. He presented it as his own work, but the ruse was soon exposed. The public premiere of the Requiem under Mozart's name took place in Vienna in 1793, and Walsegg's deception became widely known, tarnishing his reputation and cementing the Requiem's association with Mozart's tragic genius.

Walsegg's commission is historically significant not only for producing a masterpiece but also for its role in the mythology surrounding Mozart's death. The anonymous commission, combined with Mozart's premonitions, inspired numerous literary and dramatic works, including Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus and its film adaptation, which dramatized the rivalry between Mozart and Antonio Salieri, though Walsegg himself is often omitted or misrepresented.

Musicologists have studied the Requiem's provenance extensively, using paper analysis and stylistic comparison to determine which sections are authentically Mozart's. The autograph score, held by the Austrian National Library, shows Mozart's handwriting up to the Lacrimosa fragment, while later sections are in Süssmayr's hand. Walsegg's own copy, discovered in the 20th century, contains annotations that shed light on his performance practices.

Beyond the Requiem, Walsegg's musical activities included commissioning other works, such as a cantata and a string quartet, which he also passed off as his own. His estate inventory listed a collection of instruments and scores, indicating a serious amateur engagement. Walsegg's wife Anna, for whom the Requiem was written, died at age 20; her death certificate records the cause as 'consumption,' though some accounts suggest a sudden illness.

Walsegg's reputation suffered after the deception was revealed, and he retreated from public musical life. He died in 1827, largely forgotten, but his name endures in music history as the enigmatic commissioner. The Requiem's completion by Süssmayr remains a subject of scholarly debate, with some arguing that Süssmayr's contributions were more substantial than previously acknowledged, while others defend the traditional attribution.

Requiem

A Mass for the dead, in Latin, with a sequence of prayers and musical settings.

Autograph score

The original manuscript written by the composer's own hand.

Süssmayr

Franz Xaver Süssmayr, a composer and pupil of Mozart who completed the Requiem.