The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-03-02
miscellaneous.
The Story Of Mozart's Requiem.


The last work of Mozart was fitting
close to the tragedy ofhis life. One eau
not read the oft.told tale of the Re
QUEEN" without sympathetic tear.
The light of subsequent facts has long
since dissipated the atmosphere of mys-
terry that hung over it for so long time.
We know now that it is TO the vanity of
a man willing to make his wife's death
the occasion for posing before the world
in borrowed plumes as a musical COM
poser that we owe this immortal fu-
neral-hymn. With Mozart's extreme
susceptibility, heightened by his fail
ing health and his dark outlook, it is
not strange that the somber and I'M
known messenger who appeared before
him to order a requiem for a nameless
friend seemed to foreshadow his own
doom. Haunted by this conviction, he
rallied all his dropping energies for
this final work. " wish to condense
in it all my art, all my science" he
writes to his wife, "and hope that af-
ter my death my enemies, as well as
my friends, may find in it instruction
! and model. He was interrupted in
the midst of ii by an order to write an
opera for the great festival at Prague.
LA Clemenza di Tito" was written
and put on the stage in eighteen days;
then Mozart returned 10 his last task.
He was pursued by the idea that he had
been poisoned, and in order to divert
his mind his wife took away his work.
His spirits revived little, and after
few days of repose he called for his
music again. 70 a friend, probably
Du Ponte, who tried to sustain his cour-
aye, he wrote note in Italian, the last
we have from his hand
g. would willingly follow your coun-
sci, but how can l do it? My mind is
struck, and l cannot dispel the image
of that unknown man. see him con-
tinually before me; he presses me,
pursues me without ceasng, and urges
me to composition i'll spite of myself.
When l wish to stop, the repose IA
tigues and harnesses me more than the
work. Must l say it? l regard the
future without fear or terror. feel
that my hour is about to strike. touch
the limits of my life. am going TO
die before having enjoyed the fruits of
my talent. Yet life is so beau ifu!
My career opened under such happy
auspices! Alas! one cannot change
his destiny. No one here is master of
his fate, and resign myself. 1t will be
as it pleases God; as for myself, must
finish my tuneral-hymn."
Into this exalted work he breathed
the last flame of his dying genius. In
the hymn of death the sorrows, the
longings of his life found voice. Who
can listen to the sublime and heart
rending strains of the Lachrymoea +"
without feeling that beneath the pray er
for pity is the cry of suffering human
soul? 1t is The prayer of the world
translated into a form of everlasting
beauty by one who adds TO the dvlna-
ton of the poet subtle something
born of individual tears
LII the intervals of fever and delirium
Mozirt silll works at the r. quiem,'
giving directions also to Sussmayer as
to it, completion. While the
public OF Vienna was wild with enlhu-
siasm over The Magic Flute," MOI ,rt
followed the nightly performances in
his bare lit e room, with d watch be.
side him, counting the fast fleeing mo-
menls as the play went on. An
Sophie," he said to his sisler-iu-ldw
whom he had thoughttuly asked Il
stay with Constance the last night OF
his life, d" did l no, Il you that was
writing the Requiem for my owe
funeraA?" A lew hours before the euG
he j ined the friends at his bedside 10
) singing he parts already finished. Al
the Lachrymosa " he began to weep
and could sing no more. He died with
the score beside him. The Century.