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REVALUING POLITICAL CHORAL MUSIC FOR MODERN PERFORMANCE

Mozart died on December 5, 1791, and Süßmayr’s is a matter of debate, but there is evidence that Mozart
completion of the Requiem was delivered to Count and other esteemed musicians in Vienna considered
Wallsegg approximately three months later, in Febru- him to be a composer of substance. Take, for instance,
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ary 1792. When Süßmayr agreed to help Constanze a quote from a letter Mozart wrote to Constanze while
Mozart collect the remainder of the commission, there- she was in Baden with Süßmayr seeking relief from cir-

by providing desperately needed financial support for culation problems in her legs. Immediately after calling
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her two young children, he was also under pressure to him a “full-blown ass,” Mozart writes, “Do urge Süß-

finish an opera promised to Schickenader no later than mayr to write something for [Anton] Stadler, for he
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May of 1792. Christoff Wolff notes that “in view of the has begged me very earnestly to see to this.” Though
haste in which he was forced to work, his achievement it survives only in draft fragments (SmWV501), appar-
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is astonishing.” ently Süßmayr complied, as a clarinet concerto by “von
Süßmayr enjoyed no fi nancial benefit from his labors Sießmayr [sic]… played by Herr Stadler” appears on a

to complete the Requiem and, in fact, may have un- surviving concert program from March 1794 in Riga
wittingly destroyed his own reputation in the process. Latvia, one of the stops on Stadler’s European tour.
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He has become, to quote Simon P. Keefe, “the door- From a surviving part book we know that Stadler was
mat on which Mozartians wipe their feet as they enter featured as solo clarinetist in the premiere of Der Retter
the shrine to venerate the Requiem.” “In general,” he in Gefahr, a part clearly written to exploit his virtuosic
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writes, “they are content to put Süßmayr in a no-win abilities.
position: when the quality of the final movements of Other notable Viennese musicians honored Süß-

the Requiem is deemed high, they suggest that material mayr by borrowing from him. Beethoven composed a
by Mozart must have been involved; when the quality set of eight variations on the trio, “Tändeln und Scher-
is deemed low, they register their disapproval for Süß- zen,” from his opera, Solimann der Zweite (1799), and Pa-
mayr.” ganini wrote three variations for violin and orchestra,
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In spite of indications that Süßmayr’s role in com- Le streghe, Op. 8, based on an oboe passage from his
pleting the Requiem was known in Vienna as early as ballet Il noce di Benevento (1802).
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January 1793, the controversy that tarnished his post- Just two years prior to the cantata under consider-
humous reputation erupted in 1825 when Gottfried ation, Süßmayr enjoyed stellar success with Der Spiegel
Weber “began that famous, indeed notorious attack on von Arkadien [The Mirror of Arcadia], an opera in two acts
the authenticity of Mozart’s Requiem.” Weber “en- on a libretto by Schikaneder, who also commissioned
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deavored to prove that the work could not be Mozart’s, the work.
as it abounded with faults which it was impossible such
a writer could commit. Weber’s article stirred up a vi- At the high point of Der Spiegel von Arkadien
olent controversy that lasted two or three years and in there were not a few music experts who even
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which many leading musicians took part.” In all of ventured a comparison with Mozart and very
this, Süßmayr was portrayed as a scoundrel, even in- generally placed it side by side with Don Giovan-
cluding his uncanny imitation of Mozart’s notational ni, as the successor to The Magic Flute…. Com-
script that smacked of scandalous forgery. posed in Vienna in 1794 and premiered there
As Süßmayr’s posthumous reputation suff ered, per- at the Theater auf der Wieden on November

formances of his music declined and finally came to a 14, the work quickly witnessed further perfor-
nearly complete halt by the middle of the nineteenth mances in Prague, Weimar, Munich, Salzburg,
century. This state of neglect has continued down to our Paris, and other major music centers.
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own time. Indeed, it could be argued that the wounds

suffered at the hand of Weber and subsequent critics Der Spiegel von Arkadien received twenty-six performanc-
proved fatal to the victim’s reputation. es at the Theater auf der Wieden (Schikaneder’s the-
Mozart’s estimation of Süßmayr’s skill as a composer ater) in its first month alone, of which seventeen were

CHORAL JOURNAL April 2021 Volume 61 Number 9 29