But the tone-blending of the latter work is nevertheless limited, the clearer wind instruments—flutes, oboes, clarinets and the softer horns—being left out altogether, and the frequent orchestral characterisation depending altogether upon the varied combinations of the instruments named above.
The view upheld in the opera that serious ideas must be expressed in corresponding severity of form is even more decided in the Requiem, in so far as Mozart must have regarded as natural and inevitable the identification of certain fixed forms with the musical expression of religious emotion in an act of worship. The praiseworthy feeling which leads an artist, who believes himself to be offering his work for the service of the Most High, to bestow his best thoughts and his best workmanship upon it, cannot fail also to have influenced him. The pleasure which, after his study of Handel's oratorios and the strong impression made on him by Bach's motetts, Mozart took in the severely contrapuntal style of composition is evinced both in the "Zauberflöte" and in the two organ pieces composed in December, 1790, and March, 1791. But the main inducement to this form was doubtless the facility with which it expressed a serious, controlled and concentrated frame of mind, allowing at the same KYRIE—INTROITUS. time much freedom of characteristic and individual expression. The chief significance of the Requiem rests herein, that it proves these forms, with their fixed laws and strongly marked features, to have more than a merely abstract or historical value; it proves them to be in fact, when artistically conceived and scientifically handled, capable of giving appropriate expression to the deepest emotion in which the human heart finds vent.[ 30 ]
In considering the Requiem, a distinction must be made between the different parts of this kind of Mass and the different degrees of importance which they receive in relation to the act of worship with which they are associated.
The Kyrie is preceded by the Introitus, beginning with a prayer for the departed. The bassoons and basset-horns, in successive imitation, give utterance to the soft, sustained melody of the prayer, supported by a simple accompaniment on the stringed instruments; it is interrupted by four clashing trumpet chords announcing the approach of judgment, and not again recurring until the day of doom is there. Thereupon the voices immediately enter, falling in from the bass upwards; but a syncopated figure for the violins gives the petition for repose an expression of painful unrest, called forth by the contemplation of death and the coming judgment; soon, however, the clouds are pierced by the divine light which is finally to disperse them, and the movement comes to a peaceful end after an outburst of confidence and strength rendered by the orchestra. After a short transition passage come the words of the psalm, "Lord, we will magnify Thee upon Zion, and pay our vows unto the Most High." In order to emphasise these as the words of Scripture, Mozart has set them to an old chorale melody and given them to a soprano voice, which utters them in clear, pure tones, like consolation from above. The chorale, as has been already remarked (Vol. I., p. 200), is the two-part tropus of the ninth church mode to the psalm "In exitu Israel de Ægypto," and had previously been made use of by Mozart as a Cantus firmus THE REQUIEM. in his "Betulia Liberata"; but what a difference between the work of the youth and that of the matured master![ 31 ] While the soprano chorus takes up the same melody firmly and forcibly with the words "Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come!" the other voices fall in in animated movement, and an energetic figure for the violins increases the force of the expression. Then the petition for eternal rest is renewed with a stronger expression of confidence, but still with the ground-tone of painful agitation, rendered, by the union with the first motif of a second, more animated and more forcible. This second subject has already been hinted at in the transition passage to the psalm texts, from which also the passage accompanying the texts is taken, and here first fully asserts itself, the psychological development thus coinciding with the musical climax. The climax reaches its highest point in the petition for eternal light, which the divided voices utter alternately and repeat in concert with tender, pleading supplication.
The ejaculations "Kyrie eleison!" and "Christe eleison!" are bound together as the two themes of a double fugue (the first strong and firm, the second agitated and impulsive), which are carried out together in inextricable entanglement—their expression heightened by the chromatic construction towards the close, until in constantly increasing climax they come to a pause on a harshly dissonant chord, and then, as it were, collect themselves and unite in quiet composure. This fugue[ 32 ] has given rise to the extremes of criticism, laudatory and the reverse;[ 33 ] G. Weber could not bear to believe that Mozart KYRIE. could have written such "Gurgeleien" as the chromatic passages of the Christe eleison,[ 34 ] and others have looked in vain for the pious humility of expression proper to such a solemn appeal to the mercy of the Redeemer.[ 35 ] Whether the treatment of the keys adopted in this movement is in accordance with the requirements of a strict fugue, must be decided by the masters of the school; it is undeniable that on it depends the character and effect of the movement, and that the essential laws of counterpoint are here apprehended and turned to account with deep insight into their true nature.[ 36 ]
The execution of the chromatic passages is difficult certainly; but, apart from the fact that both older and contemporary masters, who wrote for trained choirs—Bach, for instance, or Handel, or Haydn—made similar demands on the skill of their performers, they are perfectly possible if taken in the right time, and the effect produced by them is probably that which Mozart intended. The conception of the movement is clearly expressed, and requires neither explanation nor apology.[ 37 ] The exclamation, "Lord, have mercy upon us!" is capable of very varied expression; in the mouth of one in the agony of death, burdened with sin and about to appear before the Judge of all men, it becomes an agonising appeal for mercy. This state of mind has already been expressed, and rises at the close of the Requiem into such an intensity of longing after eternal light, that the anguished yet not despairing cry of the Kyrie is perfectly naturally led up to. The two feelings are expressed in the two themes of the fugue, although, in accordance with the character of the THE REQUIEM. Mass, even the confidence is penetrated with a feeling of grief. In such a mood the element of agitation naturally rises higher and higher, until at length the anguish of suspense finds vent in the heartrending cry for mercy which leads to composure and resignation. The two movements of the Requiem and the Kyrie are thus formed into a whole of perfect harmonic unity, and lead the way to the Dies iræ.
In view of this unmistakable unity of conception and construction it appears strange that decided traces of Handel's influence should appear in the principal subjects. Stadler remarks that Mozart has borrowed the motif of the Requiem from the first motif of Handel's "Dirge on the death of Queen Caroline"—"as some loose sheets among his retrains show"—and has worked it out after his own manner.[ 38 ] This can only allude to the preliminary sketches of this portion of the Requiem such as Mozart was accustomed to make for contrapuntal work before writing the score (Vol. II., p. 433), and of such there must have been a great number during the composition of his Requiem. Stadler's conjecture that they were vestiges of Mozart's youthful studies is unfounded; he was not acquainted with Handel's works in his youth, nor until they were introduced to him by Van Swieten (Vol. II., p. 386), under whose direction he rearranged Handel's oratorios between 1788-1790 (p. 218). Before this, the anthem in question cannot have been known to him. In this beautiful work, composed in December, 1737,[ 39 ] Handel has taken the Chorale, "Herr Jesu Christ, du wahres Gut," or, "Wenn mein Stündlein vorhanden ist',[ 40 ] as Cantus firmus to the first chorus, and has made further use of the same theme in the fugued concluding chorus. It is very unlikely that Mozart deliberately chose out the subject in order to work it out in a different way to Handel; it was more probably so stamped on his memory as to have suggested itself naturally as suited to the words before him, and to have then HANDEL'S INFLUENCE. been quite independently worked out by him. Stadler also points out that Mozart has taken the motif to the Kyrie from one of Handel's oratorios. The chorus "Halleluja! we will rejoice in Thy salvation." from Handel's "Joseph," contains both the themes of Mozart's Kyrie, but in the major key; again, the principal subject of the Kyrie eleison has been carried out as a fugue in the minor in the well-known and beautiful chorus of the Messiah, "By His stripes." A comparison of this fugue with that of the Requiem, shows that the adaptation has not merely consisted in the change from a major to a minor key, and that the actual motif, a very favourable one for treatment in counterpoint—[See Page Image]
and one constantly occurring in the fugal movements of every age, here serves only as a nucleus from which the master proceeds to develop his own independent creation. The essential principle in the construction of a double fugue is the combination of two themes, each bearing a necessary relation to the other. In the chorus in "Joseph" are two motifs exactly answering to each other; and it can scarcely be doubted that Mozart was struck with the combination and adopted it, although, as the examples adduced will show, his working-out of the motifs is essentially his own. Handel only really worked out the second motif—one, by the way, which often recurs in others of his works—and this in very free treatment; the first only occasionally emerges from the passages which play around it, like a huge rock almost overwhelmed by the billows. Mozart has undertaken such a fugal elaboration of both motifs as presupposes a radically different treatment impossible without a new intellectual conception of the task before him. Still more essential does this reconception appear when it is remembered that the supplication of a sinner for mercy was to take the place of a joyful offering of praise and thanksgiving. The transposition to a minor key involves at the outset so complete a reconstruction of the harmonic treatment as to point to a new creation THE REQUIEM. rather than an adaptation. We here stand in the presence of one of the mysteries of music; how it is that one and the same musical idea, embodied in one definite form, should be capable by means of artistic arrangement of expressing different and even totally opposite emotions. It is true, doubtless, that invention is the characteristic gift of genius, but absolute novelty is not to be considered as altogether indispensable to invention. In music, as in every other art, the creation of an individual becomes common property for his successors, whose task it is so to develop and carry it on as in their turn to create and construct an original and undying work. Richly endowed natures, in the consciousness of their power of producing what is perfectly original from?any given point, often undisguisedly follow the impulse given by a predecessor to their imagination. A striking proof of this is given by Haydn, who has written a double fugue as the last movement of his Quartet in F minor, which might appear a deliberate attempt at rivalry, but which has in reality every claim to independence. To what extent Handel himself has employed, retouched, and re-elaborated melodies, not only of previous occurrence in his own works, but borrowed from other musicians, has lately been pointed out by Chrysander; and one of the most striking examples of such musical plagiarism is Gluck's expressive air from "Iphigenie in Tauris," "Je t'implore, et je tremble," which was unmistakably suggested by the beautiful Gigue in Seb. Bach's Clavier Studies (I., part I.).[ 41 ] Neither of these two great masters could be suspected of borrowing ideas for lack of invention.[ 42 ]
A curious part of the Requiem, of special prominence in the musical construction of the Mass, is the old Latin hymn, DIES IRÆ. Dies iræ, which is generally not quite accurately described as a Sequence.[ 43 ] It had grown into a custom in the service of the Mass that at the Alleluja of the Gradual in High Mass, which was repeated by the congregation, and then again by the choir, the last syllable "ja" should be extended into a jubilus, upon which long-drawn-out florid progressions (sequentæ) were sung, of different forms for different festivals. Gradually these became so elaborate as to offer great difficulties in execution and to require special practice, and the idea arose of providing these merely vocalised melodies (neumæ, or divisions) with words which were called prosæ, because they were confined to no particular metre or rhythm, but followed the melody, a syllable to every note. The greatest development of these prosæ, which were now called sequentiæ, was made in the ninth century by Notker the Stammerer for his scholars and successors in the musical school of St. Gall.[ 44 ] If he did not actually invent them, he gave them their essential form. Proceeding from the old alleluja jubilation, he founded upon it a fixed form, consisting partly in regularly recurring cadences, partly in the twofold repetition of each melodic progression, with the frequent employment of a kind of refrain. This gave to the words a certain amount of regularity, still however far from any strictness of rhythm or metre. These Sequences introduced a fresh element of animated movement into the rigid uniformity of the ritual, and, coming in the place of the responses, gave the congregation an effective share in the service. They had therefore a reciprocal effect on the national poetry, and were developed side by side with it. In process of time rhyme, at first only occasionally appearing, became general. The two lines set to the corresponding melodic choral progressions were connected by rhyme, as well as the lines of the refrain. Then they were united into THE REQUIEM. verses, and gradually the number of syllables in each line was made equal. The Sequences, which allowed of very great variety of form, were extremely popular in Germany, France, and England—less so in Italy; and so many were written, often set to well-known melodies, that they seemed to imperil the strictly conventional character of the Mass. The Church therefore forbade the use of all but three—"Victimæ Paschali," "Veni, sancte Spiritus," and "Lauda Sion salvatorem"—which alone are included in the revised Breviary after the Council of Trent in 1568.
There can be no Sequence properly so-called in a Requiem, because there is no Alleluja to which it can serve as the supplement; but, following the analogy of the Sequence, a hymn on the last judgment was added to the Tractus, which follows the Gradual, as a preparation for the reading of the Gospel. The date of the introduction of this hymn is uncertain, but it is mentioned as an integral portion of the Requiem by Barthol. Albizzi in 1385, and was acknowledged and retained as such, together with the three Sequences named above. The author of the hymn is not certainly identified, but it was most probably the Franciscan Thomas, of Celano, who was living in 1255.[ 45 ]