Osanna is, according to custom, an exact repetition of the previous one, only that the voices are transposed on account of the altered key.
The Agnus Dei transports us to quite a different region. Here we find the depth and intensity of feeling, the noble beauty and the originality of invention, which we admire in the first movements of the Requiem. The fine expressive violin figure of the first period—[See Page Image] is full of vigour, and is admirably enhanced by its harmonic treatment, and the gentle counter-phrase in its peaceful motion brings about a soothing conclusion. The twofold repetition is effectively varied, and the close is emphasised by a novel and beautiful turn. The whole displays the perfect mastery of a musician. "If Mozart did not write this," says Marx,[ 66 ] "well, then he who wrote it is another Mozart!"
I have seen nothing in Süssmayr's works which can justify me in ascribing to him the conception of this movement; much, on the contrary, to convince me that the chief ideas at least are Mozart's, and that Süssmayr can hardly have had a more important share in this movement than in the earlier ones. His whole statement loses, no doubt, its full credibility if a well-grounded doubt can be thrown on any one point; but I should not like to assert with confidence that in the Sanctus and Benedictus Süssmayr must have availed himself of sketches by Mozart.
The repetition of the first movement at the conclusion of the Mass was not unusual at the time. Hasse in his Requiem intones the Lux æterna to the same chorale as the Te decet, and then repeats the Requiem; Zelenka does the same; Jomelli repeats the Requiem, but adds a fresh conclusion to it. Contemplating that portion of the Requiem which Mozart completed, or which he left in such a state that to the initiated it is easy to distinguish his handiwork, GENERAL REVIEW OF THE WORK. we have no hesitation in placing this work on the pinnacle of that artistic perfection to which the great works of Mozart's later years had attained.[ 67 ] We see revealed the depth of feeling, the nobility of beauty, the mastery of form, the complete spiritual and mental absorption in the task before him which have combined to produce this marvellous creation. A comparison of the Requiem with other similar compositions, both by Mozart himself and his contemporaries, serves to emphasise the vast superiority of the former;[ 68 ] for Mozart even here does not absolutely reject the forms hallowed by long tradition; he shows his individual genius all the more strongly by keeping within them. Still less does he run counter to the views which the Requiem, by virtue of its position in the Catholic ritual, is meant to express, by any endeavour of his own to go further or to introduce something peculiar to himself; that full, unfettered devotion which is the indispensable condition of genuine artistic production is never disturbed, but human emotion, religious belief, and artistic conception go hand in hand in fullest harmony. On this unity rests the significance of the Requiem, for on this ground alone could Mozart's individuality arrive at full expression, and—working freely and boldly, yet never without consciousness of the limits within which it moved—produce the masterpiece which reveals at every point the innermost spirit of its author. In this sense we may indorse his own expression, that he wrote the Requiem for himself; it is the truest and most genuine THE REQUIEM. expression of his nature as an artist; it is his imperishable monument.[ 69 ]
The Requiem met with immediate recognition and approval. "If Mozart had written nothing except his violin quintets and his Requiem," Haydn used to say, "they would have rendered his name immortal."[ 70 ] It was more especially received with enthusiasm in North Germany, where church music, unmindful of J. S. Bach, had degenerated into all the triviality and insipidity which a slavish adherence to form could produce. It was with delight and astonishment that men recognised the union of classical severity of form with depth of poetic feeling—an oasis in the desert to those who had long wandered in a waste of sand. The old organist, Kittel, at Erfurt, a pupil of Sebastian Bach, received one day the organ part of a Requiem which he did not know; the further he proceeded in it, the more entranced he became, and on inquiring the composer's name, and hearing that it was Mozart, he could scarcely believe his ears, having been accustomed to regard Mozart only as the composer of popular operas which he knew nothing about. He procured the operas however, and was unprejudiced enough to recognise and admire in them the composer of the Requiem. So I was told by my music-master, Apel, Kittel's pupil.
Hiller, grown grey in reverence for Hasse and Graun, lifted his hands in amazement on first hearing the Requiem, and soon brought it to performance at Leipzig.[ 71 ] At Berlin the Singakademie produced the Requiem at their first public performance, October 8; 1800,[ 72 ] in memory of their founder, Fasch, who had lately died; it has ever since been chosen, both there[ 73 ] and elsewhere, when it is sought to honour the memory of great men, especially of musicians,[ 74 ] and Zelter SYMPATHY FOR THE FAMILY. expressed his opinion that the Requiem would never be brought into disfavour either by adverse criticism or mediocre performance.[ 75 ] Cherubini[ 76 ] produced the Requiem in Paris in the year 1804,[ 77 ] and it has comforted and sustained innumerable mourners,[ 78 ] not only throughout Europe, but in the New World.[ 79 ]
