Though somewhat disconcerted by the stranger's mysterious injunction, Mozart felt all his love for Church music reawakened by the new commission, and he set to work upon the Requiem without delay. His labours on this composition, as well as on the magic opera, however, were interrupted by a pressing request from the Estates of Bohemia that he would compose an opera for the coronation of Leopold II. at Prague. As the ceremony was fixed for September 6 no time was to be lost, and, banishing every other thought from his mind, Mozart prepared to set out at once for Prague. The travelling carriage was at the door, and he was about to step into it when the mysterious stranger suddenly appeared, and inquired after the Requiem. Startled by the suddenness of the man's appearance, and at a loss to explain his remissness, Mozart could only promise to fulfil the commission on his return, and, hastily entering his carriage, he drove away.
The strain involved by his arduous labours at Prague was increased by the indifference with which his opera, 'La Clemenza di Tito,' was received, and Mozart returned to Vienna with spirits depressed, and mind and body exhausted by overwork. Nevertheless, he braced himself anew, and on September 30 the new opera, 'Die Zauberflöte' (the Magic Flute) was produced. Though somewhat coldly received at first, the work increased in popularity at each subsequent representation, until its success was everything that could be desired. A friend who had a place in the orchestra on the first performance relates that he was so enchanted with the overture that he crept up to the chair in which Mozart sat conducting, and, seizing the composer's hand, pressed it to his lips. Mozart glanced kindly at him, and, extending his right hand, gently stroked his cheek.
The Requiem was still far from finished, and to this work Mozart now turned his attention. But it was too late; the strain and excitement which he had undergone during the past few months had done their work, a succession of fainting fits followed, and it was evident that the marvellous powers which he had controlled in the past were no longer under his command. With fast-fleeting strength came the oppressive thought, haunting him from day to day, that he would not live to complete the work. 'It is for myself that I am writing this Requiem,' he said one day to Constanze, whilst his eyes filled with tears. Vainly she endeavoured to comfort him; he declared that he felt his end approaching, and, indeed, death—the 'best and truest friend'—was very near him now, far nearer than they who gathered about his bed, and sought to cheer him with the news that his freedom from anxiety was at last to be assured by the combined action of the nobility in securing to him an annuity—far nearer than they, or other well-wishers, whose tardy recognition of his claims had come too late, imagined. He who had 'always hovered between hope and anxiety' was now hovering between life and death, soon to be released from all earthly travail.
On the evening of December 4 they brought the score of the Requiem to him at his request, and, propped up by pillows, he began to sing one of the passages, in company with three of his friends. They had not proceeded far, however, before Mozart laid the manuscript aside, and, bursting into tears, declared that it would never be finished. A few hours later, at one o'clock in the morning of December 5, 1791, he passed away in sleep.
The body was removed from the house on the following day,[15] and taken to St. Stephen's Church, where it received benediction. The hearse, with the few mourners, then proceeded to St. Mark's Churchyard, but before the burial-place was reached a terrific storm of snow and rain burst overhead, and with one accord the followers turned back, and left the hearse to proceed alone. And thus the master of whom it was prophesied that he would cause all others to be forgotten—he whose triumphs had caused him to be acclaimed by thousands as 'grande Mozart'—was left to be buried by the hands of strangers in a pauper's grave, without even a stone to mark the spot where he was laid.
And to this day no one knows exactly which is the resting-place of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
MOZART'S PRINCIPAL COMPOSITIONS
Operas, etc.: