Mozart's Requiem: A "Classic Romantic" Facing Death
Mozart’s Final Masterpiece: A Journey Through Music, Faith, and Human Complexity.
Bishop Williamson positions Mozart as a „classic romantic‟ bridging 18th-century order and 19th-century passion. He recounts Mozart’s life, including financial struggles and Freemasonry, while emphasizing his Catholic upbringing and operatic genius for expressing deep human understanding, contrasting artistic deification with Mozart’s childlike nature.
His Excellency details the mysterious deathbed commission of the Requiem, its haunting quality reflecting Mozart’s awareness of impending death (likely with last sacraments), and Süssmayr’s completion. +Williamson analyzes the Dies Irae, explaining how Mozart’s operatic skill conveys the text’s dramatic emotions, from terror to mercy. He concludes that true art, like Mozart’s profound Requiem, stems from deep sources like faith, not ideologies such as Freemasonry, which he believes „kills art,‟ highlighting Mozart’s human complexity as a devout Catholic Freemason.
The Classical and Romantic Eras: Mozart, Schubert, and Beethoven
The 18th century. The 19th century. Mozart was born in 1756 and died in 1791, two years after the French Revolution broke out but two years before the Terror. Schubert was born in 1798 and died in 1828. Beethoven was born in 1770 and died in 1827.
You could say that Mozart is a classic romantic, Schubert is a romantic, and Beethoven is a classic romantic. The shift from the 18th century to the 19th century is, above all, the shift of the French Revolution, particularly in politics.
The 18th Century: Order and Gentility
The 18th century was a century of order. If you read George Washington’s prose, you can see there’s a gentlemanly order about the way he writes. There circulates a book of gentleman’s etiquette, principles that George Washington copied down, George Washington’s Book of Etiquette. Have you seen that little book? The Rules for Gentleman’s Behavior? It was said that the book was used by George Washington, or kept by him. I don’t think he wrote it. The emphasis was on order.
The 19th Century: Romanticism and Passion
Whereas the 19th century is the century of romanticism, of passion, of feeling, of wildness. There’s rather less order in the 19th century but a much broader range of feeling, if you like. Less mind, more feel.
Beethoven: Bridging Two Worlds
Beethoven has the stature that he has precisely because, like Shakespeare, he’s at a turning point between two worlds. That’s why he’s so deep and why there’s so much in him; he’s the point between two worlds. There’s the order of the 18th century, especially in the music of his first period. Then, soon after you get the Eroica symphony (the third symphony), he moves into his second period, the first years of the 19th century. That’s most of the music for which he is most famous.
Then at the end, after the Battle of Waterloo had, so to speak, quieted down the revolutionary upheaval in politics, there’s no longer a heroic period. You get Beethoven’s third period of music, from 1815 to the end, which is a kind of turning inward. No longer the explosive heroism, but a kind of inward heroism, one might say.
So, we’re changing from the classic time to the romantic time, and there are elements both of classic order in Beethoven and of romantic feeling. It is the combination of the two which gives his music its special power and depth.
Mozart: Classical Order, Romantic Feeling
Mozart belongs definitely to the 18th century. Therefore, there’s order. I’ve said he’s a classic romantic because the feeling is beginning to rise in Mozart; the feeling is underneath the surface. You don’t have to scratch too much underneath that surface to hear the tears and the heartbreak. There is heartbreak in Mozart, but it’s always very graciously done. The surface remains absolutely gentlemanly and absolutely orderly. The order is never broken up like it is with Beethoven.
Schubert: Early Romantic Full of Tears
Schubert is apparently quite like Mozart. There is definitely also order in Schubert. Schubert is not a barnstormer, a shaker of the heavens like Beethoven, but his music is nevertheless full of a very strong feeling. Some of you have listened to his C major String Quintet, especially that slow movement, with its almost wild interludes. But the emphasis is that Schubert is absolutely full of tears. He once said, „What is music except a terrible melancholy?‟ There’s still quite a lot of order in Schubert, but the emphasis is moving towards feeling. He is, therefore, one of the first romantics.
Then there follow the full-fledged romantics, like Schumann and Wagner, into the middle of the 19th century. And then, towards the end, or the middle and the end, a romantic who very much leans backwards to classical order: Brahms.
Mozart's Requiem: Context and Composition
The Mozart Requiem was written in 1791, at the very end of his life. He is on his deathbed. He died at a young age, only 36, possibly because he had worked so very hard. He worked very hard and was not sure of his patronage.
Mozart's Life and Career
He had begun writing music as a church musician, under the patronage of the Archbishop of Salzburg, his hometown. Salzburg was about mid or halfway towards the west of Austria.
But around 1782—you see this in the film Amadeus, which has some truth in it; it’s worth seeing for its evocation of Mozart’s spirit. It makes a monkey of him, but it definitely proves that Mozart was not a tin god. The liberals make all of these musicians tin gods. They say God doesn’t exist, but the next best thing to God is human inspiration, the humanism of these humanists. So these artists, like politicians who make Napoleon into a god, are made into gods by liberals—the most gifted, the most, quote, „inspired.‟ Since they haven’t got the Holy Spirit any longer, they have to find inspirited or inspired men, and they go in all directions to find those.
The advantage of that film about Mozart is that it shows he was definitely not a tin god. In the film, he’s hardly even potty-trained. As one critic said, „It’s about true.‟ He’s so childish. But there’s some truth in that. There is a very childlike element in Mozart, a great simplicity. He was born and bred in the Catholic faith. His father and his mother were very devout Catholics under the Empress Maria Theresa of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was then in its heyday. His mother was Swabian, from pure Germany. His father was what we would call today Austrian, I think.
But in 1782, Mozart quit Salzburg, slamming the door behind him, so to speak. He no longer wanted to dance to the beck and call of the archbishop, and he went off to Vienna, the capital of the empire. I think it was 1782, early 1780s in any case. He freelanced, and it wasn’t as easy as he might have hoped. At first, he had great success; he was the fashion and wrote some beautiful music, those are the Köchel 400s. But then he sort of went out of fashion and fell on hard times in the later 1780s. Life wasn’t easy for him. He had a wife and six children; I think only two of them survived. She kept on producing children, and he had to look after them.
He got into Freemasonry, possibly: one, because it was highly fashionable and everyone who was anyone became a Freemason; and two, possibly because it did give him some patrons. There are, at the end of his life, pathetic begging letters as he begs his Masonic friends for money to keep his family going. But the masterpieces slow down at the end of his life.
When he wrote in the Köchel 600s, so that’s about 1790-1791, he was commissioned to write dance music. That’s not dance music as we know it today; dances were still much more decorous and respectable than they would be later. The waltz only came in about halfway through the 19th century, to the great scandal of moralists who found waltzing very immoral. Never had a man and woman been so close together. The minuet is always relatively at arm’s length. Dancing had always been much more decorous. So, dance music here was not what we think of later.
When Mozart was writing some of this dance music, he was paid a certain amount for it, and I think he wrote on one of these manuscripts, „Too much for what I’m doing, too little for what I could do.‟ Meaning they were paying him too much to write dance music; they ought to be paying him much more for what he really could do and could do much better.
He was brilliantly gifted, and he above all wanted to write opera. That is his great gift. Mozart has a wonderful grasp of human nature, how human nature ticks, and a wonderful ability of putting it into music. If any of you know Figaro or Don Giovanni or The Magic Flute, you can see that the music expresses what’s going on inside the people concerned. He also has a great affection for people and a breadth of affection for people. He’s been compared in this respect to Shakespeare. He’s got a kind of kindness towards all kinds of people, including even his villains; there’s a great understanding. The French proverb says, „Tout comprendre c’est tout pardonner‟ (To understand everything means forgiving everything). You don’t want to take that too far, but there’s some truth in it, and Mozart was one of those.
He loved partying, having a good time with his friends. He is marvelous at writing music of seduction, when either a man is after some woman or a woman is after some man. It’s not exactly the most elevated or moral kind of music you could write, but it is extremely true to life, for that kind of life. You see that first in the opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, probably 1782-1784. There was a librettist, Lorenzo Da Ponte, a Jewish librettist who had the brains to realize where Mozart’s gift lay. He actually died in Brooklyn after having written operas with Mozart; he then immigrated to the United States. I think his grave is in Brooklyn. Lorenzo Da Ponte is an Italian name. He composed three librettos for Mozart, all of which include scenes like that, very beautifully set.
The Commissioning of the Requiem
However, Mozart was born and bred a Catholic. At the very end of his days, when he was already sick to death—from what they know today of the symptoms, they think it was a kidney disease; his kidneys were probably worn out. Today, they might have saved him. It looks as though he sort of burned himself out.
A few months before he died, there came to him a mysterious stranger who knocked on his door and said, „I want you to write a requiem.‟ „Well, who’s it for?‟ „I’m not allowed to say. You can’t know who it is.‟ „Oh, right. Well, what’s the color of your money?‟ „Oh, it’s colored gold.‟ „Oh, okay.‟ So Mozart accepted the commission and he began writing the Requiem. He was writing it as he lay dying.
This makes the music very haunting, like some of the other masterpieces of Mozart at the very end of his life, like the Clarinet Concerto. There’s a special haunting quality, as though he knew he was dying. You get it particularly in the Clarinet Concerto, but other pieces as well towards the end. And the Requiem has also got this haunting quality. Mozart obviously knew that he was dying. I’m pretty damn sure he died with the sacraments. I’m pretty sure of that. He saw a priest before he died.
His deathbed, and particularly the circumstance in which he wrote this Requiem, make a tremendous romantic subject, a tremendous romantic myth: the misunderstood artist, the neglected artist, the despised artist, wonderful art, great art. It’s a whole liberal piece of baloney, basically. The songbird dying in neglect while he’s pouring out his last masterpiece. Yuck. But it’s a very popular kind of picture of Mozart.
The truth is that he did die before finishing the Requiem, but he had a pupil, Franz Süssmayr, whom he must have been able to instruct quite well in how he wanted the rest of it to be finished. Because the rest of the Requiem was finished in a way that, you know, you can’t tell that it’s that much worse than what Mozart wrote. When he wrote Confutatis Maledictis, it’s the last part of the Dies Irae that Mozart wrote, and then he dropped his pen and died. He had it finished, and he wanted it finished because that way there would be the commission; he could still get the money for his family. And I think his widow and his children did get the money. The mysterious patron who commissioned the work did pay up. Only two of the children survived. I think the widow, Constanze, married again. She survived quite a while.
The Dies Irae: Mozart's Operatic Genius at Work
In setting the Dies Irae, which all of you know—Dies irae, dies illa. Solvet saeclum in favilla. Teste David cum Sibylla.—in setting that piece, which is the sequence from the Requiem Mass just before the Gospel, Mozart used all his operatic gifts. I’ve never actually myself sat down and listened to how the music corresponds to each part, but I can remember quite clearly how this corresponds. Cum vix justus sit securus, which is out of 1 Peter: when even the just man is hardly safe.
Let’s look at the text: Dies irae, dies illa: The day of wrath, that day will dissolve the world in fire, favilla spargens. David testifying together with the Sybil. David in the Psalms told of the end of the world; the Sybil in pagan prophecy told of the end of the world. Both tell of the final judgment. Quantus tremor est futurus: How much trembling there will be. Quando judex est venturus: When the judge is going to come. Cuncta stricte discussurus: Shaking everything strictly to pieces, discerning very strictly everything that’s happened. Tuba mirum spargens sonum: The trumpets scattering a marvelous sound. Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum: And through the graves of the various regions will summon all before the throne. Mors stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Judicanti responsura: Death will stand astonished and nature when the creature will rise again to respond to the judge. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur: The written book of life will be brought forward, in which everything is contained, from which the world is to be judged. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet apparebit, Nil inultum remanebit: Therefore, when the judge will sit down, everything hidden will appear, and nothing will remain unavenged. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, Cum vix justus sit securus?: What am I, wretch, then going to say? What patron am I then going to call on—the speaker jests, „or Jewish lawyer‟—when even the just man is hardly in safety? Rex tremendae majestatis, Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis: King of tremendous majesty, who saves for nothing those due to be saved, save me, O font of piety. Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae: Ne me perdas illa die: Remember, pious Jesus, that I am the cause of your way. Do not damn me on that day. Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus: Seeking me, you sat down weary. You redeemed me suffering on the cross. Let so much labor not be in vain. Juste judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis: Just judge of vengeance, make gift of forgiveness before the day of reckoning. Ingemisco, tamquam reus: Culpa rubet vultus meus: Supplicanti parce, Deus: I groan like someone guilty. With guilt, my countenance is red. Spare, O God, he who is begging you. Qui Mariam absolvisti: You who absolved Mary—that’s obviously Mary Magdalene, not the Mother of God. The speaker humorously notes that one should not bow one’s head to „that Mary.‟ Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti: And heard the good robber, you have also given me hope. Preces meae non sunt dignae: Sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne: My prayers are not worthy, but you, O good one, be kind, lest I be burned with perpetual fire. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab haedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra: Place me amongst the sheep and separate me from the goats, setting me on your right hand.
And then this is where Mozart stopped composing. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis: Voca me cum benedictis: With the accursed having been confounded, and cast into bitter flames, call me with the blessed. This was the last piece he set.
Verdi is much more dramatic even than Mozart, but that’s because Verdi’s writing in the 19th century, whereas Mozart’s writing in the 18th.
Let’s listen how the music fits the words. This is a genius at the very top of his powers, even if it was on his deathbed. Start with Dies Irae. The music is going to be dramatic for Dies Irae. We’ll listen through each part, and I’ll remind you of the words until we get to Confutatis.
(Technical issues with playback were discussed and resolved.)
Digression: The Second Epistle of Peter
Well, turn in the meantime to 2 Peter. We were just looking at the introduction to 2 Peter, which is not going to keep us long.
Addressees and Purpose
The addressees are probably the same as 1 Peter. This can’t really be answered. Probably the same, especially since chapter 3, verse 1 refers to a previous letter, which could easily be 1 Peter. This suggests both letters were sent to the same people.
The purpose of the letter: principally a warning against false teachers. 1 Peter was: Christians must accept and learn to suffer. Two, they must not listen to false teachers.
Date and Place of Writing
The date: close to 64 or 67 AD, whichever is the date of Peter’s death, because of chapter 1, verse 14, where Peter speaks about his imminent death. Like Saint Paul speaks of his imminent death in II Timothy: „I fought the good fight, I’ve run the course, I have kept the faith.‟ So Peter also knew his death was coming.
Similarities to the Epistle of Jude
One of the main interesting points of this epistle of Peter is its „Judity‟— that is to say, its closeness to the Epistle of Jude, which we’ve already seen. There are considerable similarities of language and content. It’s possible either Peter borrowed from Jude, Jude from Peter, or both from a third source. These similarities are especially in Jude 4 to 18, alongside 2 Peter 2, verse 1 to 3, verse 3. The errors described, the ordering of thoughts, the scriptural examples are the same or enormously similar. The same words and grammatical figures are used.
The experts ask, „Who borrowed from whom?‟ Guess what the answer is? We don’t know. That’s what I would say, but that’s not what they say. They examine all arguments, then finally sort of say they don’t know. So it really is uncertain. But just notice the remarkable similarities.
Place? Presumably Rome, especially if 2 Peter was written close on the heels of 1 Peter. We know 1 Peter was written in Rome. So if 2 Peter follows 1 Peter, it’s likely also written in Rome. But there’s nothing in the epistle to indicate it. The first epistle refers to Babylon (Rome). The second has no such reference.
Listening to Mozart's Requiem: Dies Irae (Continued)
All right. Let’s see if the music is working now.
Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus. Listen how the music fits the words about discerning everything strictly. This is about as exciting as 18th-century music could be.
Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus. How much fear when the judge comes, shaking everything apart.
You can hear the trumpets. Tuba mirum spargens sonum. This is from Matthew’s picture of the last judgment. Every detail of this sequence comes from scripture. Coget omnes ante thronum. Will bring everyone before the throne.
This is the tenor. Mors stupebit et natura, Cum resurget creatura, Judicanti responsura. Death and nature will be astonished when the creature rises to reply to the judge. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. The written book brought forth, containing all by which the world is judged.
This is the contralto, I think. Judex ergo cum sedebit, Quidquid latet apparebit, Nil inultum remanebit. When the judge sits, whatever is hidden will appear. Nothing will remain unavenged. That’s the soprano.
Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? Quem patronum rogaturus, Cum vix justus sit securus? When barely the just man is secure.
Rex tremendae majestatis. The music is majestic. Qui salvandos salvas gratis. Pleading. Recordare, Jesu pie, Quod sum causa tuae viae. Remember, pious Jesus, I am the cause of Thy way. Ne me perdas illa die. Do not damn me on that day. Quaerens me, sedisti lassus: Redemisti crucem passus: Tantus labor non sit cassus. Seeking me, you sat weary. You redeemed me suffering the cross. Let such toil not be in vain. Juste judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis. Just judge of vengeance, grant forgiveness before the day of reckoning.
Ingemisco, tamquam reus: Culpa rubet vultus meus. I groan as though guilty. My face is red with guilt. Supplicanti parce, Deus. To him who begs, spare. Qui Mariam absolvisti, Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. You who absolved Mary Magdalene and heard the good thief, have given me also hope.
Preces meae non sunt dignae: Sed tu bonus fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne. My prayers are not worthy. But be kind, lest I burn in eternal fire. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab haedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra. Place me amongst the sheep, separate me from the goats, setting me on your right hand.
Mozart put it in halfway through this next piece, Confutatis Maledictis. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis: Voca me cum benedictis. The evildoers confounded and cast into bitter flames. Call me with the blessed. Completely different. The evildoers. Call me with the blessed.
Oro supplex et acclinis, Cor contritum quasi cinis: Gere curam mei finis. I beg in supplication. My heart contrite like ashes. Watch over my end.
Lacrimosa dies illa, Qua resurget ex favilla, Judicandus homo reus. Day of weeping, on which will rise from dust, guilty man to be judged. You can hear the violins weeping. Lacrimosa dies illa. Huic ergo parce, Deus: Pie Jesu Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen. To this one, therefore, spare. Kind Jesus Lord, grant them peace. Amen.
Conclusion: Mozart's Complex Legacy
The Mozart Requiem is a great piece. Verdi’s Requiem is much more theatrical. But how can a Catholic good boy, a very, very good Catholic boy, be so naughty as to join Freemasonry? And then once he’s joined Freemasonry, how can he write music like that, which is full of Catholicism?
The answer, in case you hadn’t noticed or nobody had ever told you, is that human beings are complicated. When you get everything in books, it’s all separate, clear, logical: bad is bad, good is good, white is white, black is black. But with real human beings, the whole thing is awfully mixed up.
So Mozart was… but it’s certain, at the end of his life, and he thought he was writing the Requiem for himself. His death hung over him. His Catholic childhood and everything, his Catholicism came back.
Actually, even when he was writing for the Freemasons, all the beauty of his music comes from his Catholic training and background. That’s not to say it doesn’t matter whether he joined Masonry. Of course, the Freemasons tried to use him for their glory. But Freemasonry kills art dead. It can’t produce that at all. This is no more than Protestantism can produce art.