33rd Mozart Festival in Warsaw

Basilica of the Holy Cross in Warsaw

Requiem d-moll KV 626

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Magdalena Stefaniak – sopran

Justyna Rapacz – mezzosopran

Andrzej Lampert – tenor

Łukasz Konieczny – bas

Vocal Ensemble of the Warszawska Opera Kameralna
Chorus Master – Krzysztof Kusiel-Moroz

Period Instrument Orchestra of the Warszawska Opera Kameralna
Musicae Antiquae Collegium Varsoviense

Conductor
Adam Banaszak

The concert that the audience of the Mozart Festival always look forward to. For three decades, these magnificent phrases have been returning to the interiors of Warsaw churches…

Mozart’s Requiem is one of the most enigmatic compositions in the history of music. The composer did not know the name of the person commissioning the work, who was – as we know today – the music enthusiast, Count Franz Walsegg, who used to order and claim other people’s compositions as his own. For this reason, various speculations have been made over the years about the circumstances of this commission – one of the most famous interpretations of this episode can be found in Miloš Forman’s film Amadeus. Mozart, despite being paid “in advance”, did not immediately get to work. He did not have much time for it anyway, as he was at the time composing operas: The Magic Flute and La Clemenza di Tito. When he finally began to compose the mass, he fell ill. Bedridden, in the last days of his life, he dictated the next phrases of the Requiem to his friend, Franz Xaver Süssmayr. Between being awake and feverish delirium, he composed in a belief that it would be a funeral mass for his soul. He died on 4 December 1791, at the age of 35, while dictating the eighth bar of the beautiful Lacrimosa. Süssmayr had to finish the sketches of his friend by himself. The original Mozartian phrases: Dies Irae, Confutatis, or Tuba mirum, just like Lacrimosa, prove the composer’s genius today. However, the demonic Sanctus, melancholic Benedictus, and the touching romantic note Agnus Dei are the work of Süssmayr. Here, the successor achieved a level worthy of his master.