Mozart-Requiem

A notorious figure once again plays a sinister role in the recent mini-series «Amadeus»: the «grey messenger» who commissioned Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to compose the Requiem that was to cost him his life. In tellings of this story for the theatre, cinema and television, the figure is Mozart’s scheming rival Antonio Salieri, but in reality it was an emissary of Count Walsegg. The count wanted to put on a requiem mass in honour of his wife who had died at the age of just 20 – but also wanted to be named as its composer. Completed by Mozart’s pupil Franz Xaver Süßmayr, the Requiem was first performed in Neukloster Abbey in Wiener Neustadt during a requiem mass in 1793 – under the direction of the count and supposedly written by him. A boundary-pushing love is also at the centre of Arnold Schoenberg’s «Verklärter Nacht» (Transfigured Love). And this one is even permitted to end happily, in shimmering, pure D major: Inspired by Richard Wagner’s opera «Tristan und Isolde», this dreamlike, rapturous tone poem is devoted to life in all its intensity. It forms the prelude to this evening of performances by selected soloists, Konzertchor Interpunkt and the Tonkunstler Orchestra under Andreas Ottensamer.