LACRYMOSA, AND THE TRIUMPH OF CONSTANZE MOZART
Constanze Mozart, wife of the great composer, is treated rather shabbily––and in my view, unfairly––by almost all of Mozart’s biographers. She’s variously described as being vacuous, manipulative, self-centered; not being very pretty, not having as beautiful a voice as her two sisters who were successful opera singers, and––horror of horrors––being an inadequate housekeeper. However, when one considers the almost insurmountable challenges she faced as a young, penniless widow with two small children at a critical moment in her life, what she was able to accomplish seems to belie the assertions of her worst critics. It’s also worth noting that almost all of Mozart’s biographers have been men.
The following story is, in large part, factually true. I’ve told it from what I believe might have been Constanze’s point of view.
Do you hear that? Those heartrending notes from the chorus? That was the moment, in the Lacrymosa, when my dear Wolfgang’s story ended…and mine began.
Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, my beloved husband, was dead. He had left the Requiem undone, and in doing so, I too was undone. It was our last hope.
You may have heard the name Mozart? You chuckle, but for a time he was not so well known. Not like when he was still alive and everyone knew that name. After him, from him, came Schubert and Mendelssohn and Beethoven.… Yes, you smile, always Beethoven. But my Wolfgang, my husband, was greater than all of them, and someday…yes, someday… Forgive my sigh.
Our second-floor apartment, No. 970 on the corner of the Rauhensteingasse, was always dark, even in daytime. On that horrific night, in the first hour of the fifth of December, it was as cold and damp inside as it was on the streets of Vienna. When I entered our bedroom with my younger sister, Sophie, who had come to help, I knew what little hope we had was gone.
Was Wolfgang still of this world? It was almost impossible to tell. He lay in bed, his score to the Requiem on his chest, his pen still in his claw of a hand. It was only from the barely perceptible fluttering of the pages of the score that I could determine that any breath remained within him.
Little Karl clung to my skirts. He was terribly frightened. What could one expect of a seven-year-old? He could hardly bear to look upon his father’s countenance, red and swollen almost beyond recognition. The stench was dreadful.
Without warning, Wolfi rose with a start and vomited all over himself. I quickly removed the Requiem from my husband’s chest so that it would not be defiled and lost forever. Just as suddenly, he collapsed back onto his pillow. My infant, Franz Xaver, began crying piteously from his cradle in the parlor. He was hungry. What was I to do?
Sophie nodded to me. I took Karl by the hand. “Come,” I said. “Your little brother needs us. Papa is in heaven now.” (Would that I could change places with him.) I closed the door behind us.
I was twenty-nine. In our nine years of marriage we had moved twelve times. I had given birth to six children. Four of them died before their first birthday. You probably don’t remember what childbirth was like in 1790. Imagine the worst…then double it. No doctors, of course. Midwives…when we could afford them. More than once, I almost joined my poor children in their graves.
My two boys who survived, Karl Thomas and Franz Xaver Wolfgang, were everything I had left. And when I say “everything,” I mean everything. Our furniture, our possessions, were all being pawned to pay for debts that Wolfi had managed to acquire. I admit, much of those were to pay for my cures at Baden for my phlebitis and other ailments. But he also borrowed without constraint from any friend willing to lend him money, if only in order to give that money to anyone who asked him for it. Well, never mind that.
I would have stolen to keep my boys out of the poorhouse or from begging on the street. What mother wouldn’t?
Tiny Franz Xaver clutched at my breast to suckle and for comfort, as would a different Franz Xaver a month later, not so much for comfort as for compensation. (More about that later.) But I did not even have milk to offer my own infant, let alone money to pay for a wet nurse or for rent for the roof over our heads. As I sat in the dark, feeding my poor little child tepid water, I will confess, though I am a good Catholic, that ending my life and the lives of my boys entered my mind. What did I have? Nothing. Nothing but misery and an unfinished musical score, and what good was that? The premiere was scheduled for February 14, two months away, and I would not receive another ducat for it until it was delivered, finished, into Count von Walsegg’s hands.
Yes, it was Count Franz von Walsegg who had commissioned it, as I discovered after discreet inquiries. Wolfi thought it was so mysterious: The anonymous messenger dressed in gray who had approached him to compose the Requiem, refusing to reveal the name of he who commissioned it. Wolfi was not always in his right mind at that time. There were moments he imagined that the mysterious man was an emissary from the dark realm and that he was composing the Requiem for his own funeral.
The true explanation was not so otherworldly and was as laughably simple as it was mundane. Count von Walsegg was a wealthy scoundrel who signed his own name to scores he secretly commissioned, claiming to be the composer. For his emissary to have revealed his identity would have been to expose his deceit. So, he paid reasonably well to obtain more-than-reasonably good music––for the Requiem, fifty ducats upon agreement, another fifty upon delivery––well enough to ensure that the composers would never know that another had claimed its authorship. And, if they did find out, they would keep their mouths shut for fear of losing more commissions, or worse, being accused of slander against a powerful aristocrat.
Yet, I wasn’t totally unsympathetic. Performance of the Requiem had been intended for the first anniversary of the Count’s young wife’s premature death. Ah, I envied her in more ways than one.
Karl had fallen asleep at my feet. Franzi, frail and hungry, would not stop squirming and whimpering. If only Wolfi had lived another few days, another week, he would have finished it. He would have been paid. Now…
It was cold. There was no wood for the stove. We couldn’t afford it. But we did have paper. Letters. Long letters. Hundreds of letters that Wolfi’s father, Leopold, had written him over the years. That shriveled sausage of a man! He was like the moon, basking in the reflected incandescent glory of the sun, his son, while he himself produced nothing of his own but coldness. He, who had done everything he could to control our lives, to ruin our lives, to defame me, would not be remembered in my home. I packed his letters in the stove until there was no more room and lit a match. “Burn,” I said. “Burn brightly.” My father-in-law’s letters provided the only true warmth he had ever given us.
Could I finish the Requiem? What a ridiculous thought! One of those sleep-deprived wild ideas one gets in the middle of the night when minds wander aimlessly. Yet, when I woke I felt a new clarity, a new resolve. I would do anything to protect my two boys from the fate of their four brothers and sisters. I whispered their names aloud: Raimund Leopold, Johann Thomas Leopold, Theresia Constanzia Adelheid Friedericke Maria Anna, and Anna Maria. To save my living children, I began to forge a plan. Whence it sprung, I cannot fathom, but it was born of instinct, practice, and sheer desperation, even as my heart was breaking.
Maybe you won’t forgive me––whether you do or do not is not my concern––but I did not go to Wolfi’s burial. As I said, the weather had been terrible and a heavy mist was falling. My legs were swollen, and I could not risk losing my two little boys as I had the others. I could not bear that. Saint Marx Cemetery was miles from our apartment. I couldn’t afford a coach, and at night it was unsafe for a woman to walk alone, even if I could. And let me be frank. My dear husband was dead, and I did not wish to follow him into a shallow grave. Yes, perhaps he had achieved fame in Vienna, but fortune had eluded him like a phantom.
Dear Joseph Eybler was there. He told me later that Süssmayr, the other Franz Xaver in my life, attended, and loyal Baron von Swieten, who paid for it all, as he had for so many other things for us. One or two others were there. Salieri, too, was there, of all people! Salieri was probably there to assure himself that Wolfi was truly dead. If not for his machinations, Wolfi would have had a fine position in Emperor Joseph’s court, and still might have, had both of them lived longer. Joseph’s brother, Leopold, succeeded him and had little interest in music other than for his parties. No matter, now. The greatest composer who ever lived, who would ever live, buried in the night in a commoner’s grave.
Two weeks later, the vultures descended, carting away the furniture, to be sold to pay off Wolfi’s debts so that we wouldn’t immediately be thrown onto the street. They offered a pittance for the fine, expensive clothes that he always liked to wear, and I accepted it. Not that Wolfi was vain–though he was, a bit–it was important to look his best for the nobility who helped sustain him, and even for those who didn’t.
They began to haul away his beloved fortepiano.
“Take your hands off of that!” I said.
“We have orders.”
“Damn your orders. If you so much as breathe on that instrument again, so help me I’ll see to it that Emperor Leopold has your testicles cut off.”
They left the fortepiano. I was also permitted to keep Wolfi’s music, plus empty shelves and empty stomachs. And an unfinished requiem. I could wait no longer to put my plan into action.
After they departed, I quickly donned my cloak and cowl, hiding the Requiem within, and left Franzi in Karl’s care.
“I won’t be long,” I said, promising to bring home a treat.
The day was fair, though I wished it wasn’t, as I feared being observed on an errand of great import. The streets were bustling, as if the pleasant weather had lifted everyone’s spirits. As gossip in Vienna spreads like the wind, everyone had probably learned by now that Mozart was dead, and the last things I wanted were condolences, or worse yet, questions.
It wasn’t far to Joseph Eybler’s apartment. Both Wolfi and I loved Joseph for his sweet disposition and sympathetic, honest countenance. We had met him through Haydn’s intercession. Whatever words that flowed from Haydn were golden to Wolfi, and, as it happened, Haydn’s praises turned out to be true. Joseph showed promise as a composer, especially after his studies with my husband, and was beginning to receive valuable commissions from the right people. Ten years younger than Wolfi, Joseph became almost the younger brother that he always wanted.
He and Franz Süssmayr were at Wolfi’s side in his last days, assisting him with his Requiem. Wolfi’s brain never failed him, but he was so weak that he struggled with his ability to put pen to paper. He would try to sing, though his croaking voice was hardly above a whisper, and tell them what notes to enter in the score. Franz’s handwriting was remarkably like Wolfi’s, such that at times it was difficult to tell them apart. Franz always was talented…as an imitator.
Franz, who was about Joseph’s age, had skill and craft, but Wolfi believed Joseph to be the superior, more inspired composer, and he loved Joseph. Those were the reasons, and more, that I went to Joseph Eybler with my plan. Why did I not seek out more accomplished composers, you may ask? There were many reasons: They were far more expensive than I could afford, they were constantly in demand for their own compositions, and they were jealous of Mozart, always plotting against him. But the main reason was, they could not be trusted with my secret.
I knocked at Eybler’s door. I had not sent a message in advance of my arrival as I did not want anyone to know of my visit. When he opened the door, I raised my cowl for him to recognize me. His customary warm smile turned to one of surprise, and then, within seconds, tears clouded his eyes. He looked as if he might collapse, but recovered his composure enough to bid me enter. I did so wordlessly, as my own overflowing eyes spoke with sufficient eloquence of our shared sorrow.
His parlor was comfortable though spare, and, sitting by the stove, I was warmed by a fire for the first time in a week. I waited while he brewed tea, which he served me with trembling hands. It was only then that he began to relate the details of the burial.
“Please stop,” I bade him, as I did not think I could bear any addition to my grief. “My heart bleeds like a fresh and open wound, and as painful as it may be, I must cauterize my soul if I am to stanch the flow.”
Joseph apologized profusely and unnecessarily.
“May we not speak of fonder memories, Joseph?” I asked, to which he ardently agreed. We both dried our tears as we talked at length about Prague, where Wolfgang had been a hero and loved more than anywhere else, and the wonderful successes with The Marriage of Figaro and Don Giovanni, and the unending parties and friendships. We had been there as recently as the past summer, for La clemenza di Tito. It was not long after that when Wolfgang became ill; shortly our conversation came full circle to our present unhappy situation. It was at that point I told him of my plan.
“Joseph, I want you to complete the Requiem,” I said. “No one must know it is not yet finished. That is all-important.” It was understood by both of us without any sense of deprecation, and did not need to be said aloud, that an Eybler, no matter how capable, was not a Mozart.
“But I’m not good enough,” he replied. “Wolfgang was my god. I was his mere acolyte.”
“You are good enough, Joseph. Wolfi thought so. And so did Haydn. Those recommendations are good enough for me.”
“But I have no score, Frau Mozart! I haven’t got Wolfgang’s astonishing memory.”
I extracted the score from under my cloak. I had brought it, believing that once he saw it, once he had it in his hands, it would be difficult for him to refuse.
“See, here it is! Wolfgang has completed much of it. Several sections totally. The vocal lines and the bass in others. All that’s needed is to fill in the orchestration. Please try. I depend upon you.” Clearly, I had simplified the issue; there was much more than that, but I had to convince him.
Yet he was not convinced, and shook his head slowly. “I cannot–”
I took him by the shoulders and forced him to look into my eyes, still red and swollen from too many tears.
“Joseph, what will happen to me? Would you have me begging on the street with my children, selling flowers or trinkets…or worse?”
Aghast, Eybler looked at me in horror at the thought.
“What other opportunities are there for penniless widows with children?” I continued. “Name me one, please! Name me one!”
I had brought with me an affidavit. I forced it into his hands:
The undersigned herewith testifies that the widow, Frau Konstanzia Mozart, has entrusted to him the Mass for the Dead which her late husband had begun. He further declares that he is prepared to complete it by mid-Lent of next year and that it will not be copied nor given to anyone else but to the composer's widow.
Vienna, December 21, 1791.
“Please sign this, Joseph. My life is in your hands.”
Without another word, Joseph rummaged in his desk for a pen, the same one, I believe, with which he entered notes in the Requiem as had earlier been dictated to him by poor Wolfi. He signed the affidavit.
It was done. As reluctant as I was to leave the warmth of his parlor, I finished my tea and stood to leave.
“May I ask one more favor?”
“Anything,” Joseph said.
“Could you spare something to eat that I could bring to young Karl?”
“An Eybler sausage for a Mozart Requiem?” Joseph said with a sad smile. “I would say I’m getting the better end of that bargain.”
And so, day after day, I waited. But while I waited, I also put into play other parts of my plan. I initiated a whispering campaign–some stories true, some contradictory, most apocryphal–throughout the echelons of Viennese society I had come to know so well with Wolfgang, in order to create a blurry fog of confusion and mystery surrounding the circumstances of the Requiem, and with that mystery, enhancing its interest and its potential market value. In Vienna, the wings of rumor take flight like an eagle: “Mozart was visited by a mysterious anonymous messenger in the night who commanded him to compose the Requiem.” “Mozart had been ill a long time.” “Mozart had been fine until just a few weeks ago.” “Mozart thought someone had poisoned him. Salieri? Who knows? Perhaps. Perhaps not.” “Mozart was in good spirits.” “Mozart had been depressed.” “Mozart had been working on the Requiem since July.” “Mozart had begun composing the Requiem in late November.” “Mozart had a premonition of his own death; he believed he was composing the Requiem for himself.” Only one story remained constant: Mozart had completed the Requiem before he died. For anyone to know otherwise would be my doom.
After a week, I received a note from Eybler. He desired to meet with me at the earliest opportunity. I responded, “Come immediately. I cannot breathe until I see what you have done.”
He arrived within the hour, paler by half than Wolfi had been on his deathbed.
“What is the matter, dear Joseph? Do you need more time? Please sit.”
“I cannot sit. I have not slept this past week. I have tried, but as soon as I put pen to paper my courage and my ability leave me. I have scribbled in a few notes, but… but I am unworthy of this task. I have failed you miserably and I am ashamed.” He handed me the score.
My mouth opened but no words came forth, as there were no thoughts to produce any. We looked at each other with pity and despair, remaining motionless until he bowed, turned, and departed. I waited until he rounded the corner, and collapsed.
It was Karl who woke me from my stupor and tried to lift me from the floor. It would have been a comical scene in an opera buffa had not the circumstances been so dire. I patted him on the head and stumbled to my bed.
As I stared into the abyss of my future, I saw my past. My father, Fridolin Weber, had died. I was estranged from my mother, Cäcilia, who chided that Wolfi wasn’t good enough for me. Ten years earlier, over the strenuous objections of both my family and Wolfi’s father, we had begun living together as an unmarried couple. Years before that, Wolfi had been infatuated with my older sister, Aloysia. Then, at the prodding of his father, he left to seek his fortune in Paris only to have his dear mother, who accompanied him, become sick and die. While they were in Paris, Aloysia became the mistress of Joseph Lange, a well-to-do, influential actor, in order to gain access to the opera world, where she became a diva. In yet another ironic twist, Aloysia became the prima donna in Wolfi’s greatest operas. Another sister, Josepha, also made a fine opera career, and Wolfi composed his “Queen of the Night” aria for her. I may not be as beautiful as Aloysia, but I am a good singer, though not as renowned as my sisters, and I was Wolfi’s inspiration for the sublime soprano solo in the Great Mass in C Minor, which I sang at the first performance in Salzburg in 1783.
You may well ask, why was my cohabitation with Wolfi such a scandal? Hadn’t Aloysia traded her body for Lange’s influence to help her rise in the ranks? Why was that arrangement not only considered acceptable, but envied? Why, it was de rigueur for ambitious female singers! My relationship with Mozart was condemned for one reason only: He was poor.
Our lives thus disrupted by the threat of being disowned by our families, we did the practical thing. We married. The ensuing years were a frenzy of excitement followed by drear, dining with royalty one day and pawning our furniture to stay warm the next. We were constantly in debt, regardless of the mostly modest fees Wolfgang had managed to obtain for his compositions and for his performances as a pianist, conductor, and teacher.
Between the two of us, I tried to be the more practical and pragmatic, though forgiving to a fault of my husband’s financially profligate ways and hopelessness as a businessman and entrepreneur. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so tolerant. But neither was I a wonderful housekeeper, even when I was not pregnant, which was hardly ever. Nevertheless, despite the ups and downs, ours had been a loving, trusting partnership. We were happy.
I could beg my mother to take my children and me in, but she hardly had the means. And if I had to fall upon her mercy I would spend the rest of my life under her gnawing, oppressive gaze of “I told you so” for having married Mozart. I would almost rather die.
With Eybler’s failure I had lost a week, and for a moment, hope. There was one more chance, and only one.
Eybler had been loyal and devoted to Wolfi. Franz Süssmayr less so. Wolfi often referred to him as an ass, and worse, on more than one occasion. While composing the Requiem, he would say to a confounded Süssmayr, “Eh, there you stand, like a duck in a thunderstorm; you won’t understand that for a long time,” and would have to complete his ideas himself.
One could tell simply by looking into Süssmayr’s eyes that he was constantly analyzing, constantly calculating, constantly political, though one couldn’t blame him entirely for that. Every musician in Vienna was, at least in part, political. That is how one got ahead. Talent and genius were of less import. Franz saw which way the wind blew, and when the Emperor promoted Antonio Salieri to compose operas while assigning Wolfi to scribble background dance music for parties, Franz followed in Salieri’s wake. Forgive me for laughing, but then, when Salieri got the boot, Franz was suddenly our friend again. Surprisingly, so too was Salieri, though for what end I never knew.
Thus, Wolfi did not trust Süssmayr, though he needed him as an assistant and for his occasional lesson money. I need to mention that in the two years from the time that Franz first arrived at our doorstep, Wolfi had also become increasingly jealous of him, and though I insisted there was no basis for his suspicions, that was far from the truth.
Here’s when it started. On August 25 of this past year, we–Wolfi, Süssmayr, and I–departed at dawn for Prague, leaving both children in the care of my youngest sister, Sophie. Wolfgang had been commissioned to compose La clemenza di Tito, an opera seria, to celebrate Leopold’s coronation as emperor. Wolfi had been working on The Magic Flute, his last opera, but of course he had to abandon that for the moment. He completed La clemenza as we were traveling, as the commission had arrived late and he had only begun composing it two weeks earlier.
The trip in the mail coach, which was the fastest way to go the hundred fifty miles from Vienna to Prague, took three days and four nights, with twenty-one stops along the way. Süssmayr accompanied us because Wolfi, who was overworked and had been feeling poorly, needed him to compose the secco recitatives and to fill out some of the orchestral parts. These were standard practices in those days. I sat between them in the coach.
Wolfi spent most of the trip staring blankly out into the vineyards or fields or forests, but of course his mind was anything but vacant. He was composing the opera in his head, as was his method, and I had learned not to disturb him. One chilly morning this became difficult for me, because Süssmayr, who was sitting to my right, put his hand on my leg, under the coarse wool blankets that covered all of our laps. It was the first time he had tried to take advantage of me, but it would not be the last. He had often visited me in Baden, where I had gone for cures, and with Wolfi’s full knowledge. During those visits he was kindly and cheerful and friendly, as a friend should be. He had apparently interpreted my congenial response to his affections in a way I had not intended.
I could not cry out for fear of interrupting Wolfi’s thoughts. If I had done so, no doubt Wolfi, who was intensely protective of me, would have insisted that Süssmayr be thrown off the coach, but then he would have had his mental process disrupted, been deprived of an able assistant, and in his fragile health he might not have had the endurance to survive, let alone finish the opera on time.
It is perhaps relevant to mention here that our child Franz Xaver Wolfgang, who was born just a month earlier, was named in part after Süssmayr. It was not my idea. It was Wolfi’s, because he wanted to demonstrate to me that he was not the jealous type. If I had objected too strenuously, he might have wondered why.
When I felt Franz’s hand on my leg, I stared straight ahead. Süssmayr again evidently misinterpreted my silence. His hand found its way up my skirts to a place no man but a husband should touch. It was no less objectionable than the pestilential fleas that populated the blanket, but there was nothing to be done about either, except to forbear. This would be a foretaste of what was to come.
The morning after Eybler’s surrender, I had a letter delivered to Süssmayr, inviting him for an interview that afternoon. I did not detail what the subject matter would be, for two reasons: To allow his lascivious mind to wonder, and to be certain that if the letter were opened and read by prying eyes, nothing would be revealed.
He duly arrived, a bemused grin on his face.
“You sent for me, madam,” he said, bowing theatrically.
I set forth the same proposition to finish the Requiem as I had to Eybler. Of course I didn’t tell him that he was the second to be asked. That would have wounded his pride.
“Certainly, I can finish it. Mozart gave me precise instructions for the sections he only sketched, and I could easily compose a Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei to complete the Mass. No one will be able to tell the difference, I can assure you.”
Aware of Süssmayr’s current allegiance to Salieri, I added, “You must swear to me that you will not divulge, ever divulge, that it was anyone other than Mozart who composed the Requiem.” If anyone were to discover the truth, I would not only lose the balance of the commission from Count von Walsegg, I would most likely be thrown in prison.
“I so swear.”
“You will do it, then?”
“For a price.”
I was aghast. “You know I have no money to offer you, Franz.”
He ran his eyes up and down my body. “Money isn’t the only currency, you know.”
I would have slapped him had I not needed him. “I’ve been a widow for a week and you dare make this proposal? Please leave. Immediately.”
That was not the response he was expecting.
“Very well.”
That was not the outcome I had hoped for.
“Wait,” I said. “If you complete the Requiem, and if it is accepted as Mozart’s, then, and only then, shall you be rewarded.”
“So be it.” His smirk returned. “I am guaranteed my reward, then.”
I will give Franz credit. For whatever reason, or reasons, he toiled diligently and provided me with regular accounts of his progress, though I suspected from the acerbic tone of his dispatches that he had detected Eybler’s prior hand in the score and was not pleased. After two weeks he sent an announcement that he would bring his work to my apartment.
At the appointed hour I instructed Karl to go into the other room with Franzi.
Süssmayr arrived and proudly informed me that he had filled out those parts of the score that Wolfi had left incomplete, even borrowing bits and pieces of earlier Mozart compositions.
“And with the deadline looming like a devouring apparition,” he added, “I’ve cleverly repeated the beginning section of the Requiem at the end, simply changing the text.” (I distinctly recalled Wolfi proposing this novel idea to Franz. Perhaps, because Wolfi could barely speak above a whisper, his strength having abandoned him, Franz thought their conversation could not be overheard. Nevertheless, I did not correct his account, as I was wary of poking a hole in his high estimation of “his” ideas.)
Franz sat down at Wolfi’s fortepiano and played what he had so far accomplished, singing the vocal parts in a surprisingly rich baritone, well in tune.
I placed my hand gently on his shoulder. “You are making excellent progress, Franz. It is highly…professional.”
That was the truth. It was good, yes, but not good enough. Pointing out some details where I knew Wolfi would have altered the counterpoint or doubled an instrumental line, I encouraged Franz to greater efforts as judiciously as possible, so as not to damage his opinion of himself. Even so, his frown told me he had felt offended. Yet, there was more to be said, and so I said it. Several sections of the Mass were still totally missing.
“What you have brought me is wonderful, Franz. But it appears you have not yet even begun the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei.”
To my alarm, he leapt from the bench at which he had been sitting and grabbed me by the wrists, pinning me against the wall and pressing his body against mine.
“It will be finished, I assure you.”
I told him to let me go.
“You caress my shoulder and expect me not to respond?” he cried. “I cannot have mistaken your intent.”
“I was only–”
“Do you already forget your promise?” he snapped.
“I have not, but clearly you have. First, you finish it. And then…”
“ ‘And then,’ you say? Well, I have brought you a gift today, now, and for that I will take my down payment.”
He covered my lips with his, and as he did so he clutched my breast and pulled down my bodice.
“Franz, my children are in the next room.”
“And you and I are here.”
I pushed him away with all my strength.
“If the world is to remember you, Herr Süssmayr,” I said, though my voice was quivering, “it will only be because your name is associated with the name of Mozart. If you do your best, more than your best, you may be remembered with approbation. If you do any less, you will certainly be remembered, but with opprobria. The choice is yours, and yours alone, and that advice is the only down payment you will receive from me. Now, take your hands off of me.”
I didn’t know whether he was going to slap me or defile me, but in the end he left me alone, picked up his drafts, and stormed from my apartment.
Süssmayr finished the Requiem quickly. Whether it was to satisfy his vanity or to hold me to my promise, I don’t know. But I must say, he hadn’t ever composed music that approached the depth of what he achieved with the Requiem, and I say in all objectivity, never again would.
He came to my apartment to deliver the score, which he did, to my great relief, in gentlemanly fashion.
There was one detail remaining. I needed to put to rest any doubts Count von Walsegg might have regarding the authenticity of the composition. To that end, I employed Franz to forge Wolfgang’s signature on the score, reminding him of his oath to acknowledge the music as entirely my husband’s. This task he executed with perfection, as their handwriting was so similar.
“Thank you,” I said.
He looked at me with an intent that I could not misconstrue.
“After the performance,” I said.
He merely bowed and departed. I breathed.
A far greater challenge was to prevent von Walsegg from claiming the composition as his own while at the same time making sure not to alienate him and thereby losing the balance of the commission. Though I had promised Süssmayr my body as a reward for his efforts, I had no intention of offering the same to anyone else, for any price.
I wrote Count von Walsegg a letter, informing him that I was in possession of the complete score of the Requiem, and that I would deliver it in time to prepare for the February performance. I had Karl seek a messenger to deliver it for me, to whom I was about to hand the letter, when I had a sudden thought.
Count von Walsegg’s commission would sustain me for the moment, certainly, but after that, what? I would soon return to the same dire situation I was in now. Something had to be accomplished on a more permanent basis.
“Please wait,” I said to the messenger.
I tore up the first letter and quickly wrote a second, simply saying that I wished to meet with the Count at a time of his choosing. Knowing how anxious he was to have his hands on the score, I assumed it would be soon, and I was right.
Count von Walsegg’s salon was as large as our entire apartment and appointed with the latest furniture in the fashionable French style. Candles lit the entire room so that it was as bright as a sunny day, and a fire in the hearth warmed me more than I had been for months.
He was quite polite and put me at my ease with pleasant conversation, yet it was evident he was eager to have “his” Requiem. I broached the subject, presenting my new proposal directly, but with sympathy.
“Sir, you are perhaps aware that my husband’s death left my two little children and me not only penniless, but deeply in debt. That is why we, Wolfgang and I, were deeply grateful for your considerate commission and for your faith in him to compose a work which would properly memorialize your dear wife. You and I are the same age and so young, yet here we are: I am a grieving widow and you are a grieving widower. We have much in common.”
“Just so,” von Walsegg said. Did I detect a hint of impatience?
“I want you to consider what I am about to ask you, Your Excellency, as it is not exactly in accordance with the terms of the prior agreement with Wolfgang.”
“Go on.”
“What I propose is that before your memorial performance of the Requiem, I would like to organize a public performance, acknowledging the composer as my husband, Wolfgang Amadè Mozart, and no other.”
Von Walsegg raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
I continued. “The receipts from the public performance would supplement your generous commission, which you have so graciously offered, and would greatly help to sustain my small family. It is my hope–no, it is my strongest belief–that once the public hears this Requiem, the knowledge that you were the benefactor who made it possible will shower praise and honor upon your household. And of course you shall receive the score, as you have paid for it.”
I awaited von Walsegg’s response. If he were to become irate for having lost the “authorship” of the Requiem, I had confidence that my intended concert’s sponsor, our friend and ally Baron von Swieten, would provide me with the powerful protection I might need to fend off any potential retribution. In any event, there was none forthcoming.
“I have long held Mozart’s genius in high esteem,” von Walsegg said at last, who might have been thinking along the same lines. “I may have lost a first performance, but perhaps I have found a small place in history.”
The premiere took place at the Jahn-Saal. Everyone was there. Baron von Swieten, of course, and even Kapellmeister Salieri. Eybler was there, looking apprehensive. He gave me a secretive wave and tried to smile. He was the only other person on earth who knew the truth. The public curiosity was immense for my husband’s final earthly statement. How many composers, at the zenith of their skills, could claim to have brought their mortal coil to a conclusion with a Requiem of profound beauty?
Süssmayr and I sat together in a box, visible to all. Karl was by my side. Franzi was still too young to go to his father’s concert. Süssmayr and I knew exactly where Wolfi’s pen had been stilled, after the first eight introductory bars of the Lacrymosa. Would anyone else, upon listening, be able to comprehend where one hand, one mind, ended and another had taken over? With each passing moment, as the combined forces of orchestra, chorus, and vocal soloists performed the Introitus, Requiem aeternam, Kyrie, Dies irae, Tuba mirum, Rex tremendae, Recordare, and Confutatis, my anxiety intensified, fearful that it was impossible that our duplicity would not be immediately and obviously evident.
Had I been a fool? Would I be exposed as a fraud? Is it possible that anyone who was not deaf could not tell the difference between a workmanlike composer and the great Mozart, whose melodies were sung and whistled by the man on the street from London to Rome to Prague? Surely, our ruse would be discovered.
The Lacrymosa arrived. Mournful, pleading waves of orchestral sound flowed over the audience. The very moment of my dear husband’s death arrived. Süssmayr sought my hand. I pulled away and folded it on my lap. The chorus entered.
Full of tears will be that day
When from the ashes shall arise
The guilty man to be judged;
Therefore spare him, O God,
Merciful Lord Jesus,
Grant them eternal rest. Amen.
I dared myself to look around, preparing to be crucified. To my amazement, the audience was spellbound. From one face to another there were tears. Real, human tears. In a daze, I was hardly conscious of the remaining movements of the Requiem passing without incident. I had triumphed. Süssmayr had triumphed. Mozart had triumphed.
With the success of the Requiem, I received an unexpected request from King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia to purchase eight of Wolfi’s scores. His offer was eight hundred ducats! Wolfi's salary for an entire year as Court Chamber Composer had been two hundred ducats. I also sold the King the score to the Requiem for another hundred, and other copies of it to other princes. The performance at the Jahn-Saal itself realized three hundred ducats.
Yes, Count von Walsegg received his copy, too, though he may well have been under the impression it was the only copy. I did nothing to dissuade him of that conviction and felt no guilt in the omission, as it had been his original intent to take sole credit for the authorship of a composition not his own.
Shortly after Wolfi’s death I requested an audience with the Emperor, Leopold II, dressing with special care to show the respect due to the court but to not totally disguise my impoverished state. He received me as cordially as ever, and expressed his sympathies.
“I will miss the little man in my court,” he said. “He was a true genius.”
My thought was, if that is what you believe, why did you hire him to be nothing more than a poorly paid servant? About that, I remained silent. Instead, I appealed for a widow's pension, reasoning that it was due me as a result of Wolfgang's service to two Emperors. I knew my argument was tenuous, as Wolfi had been merely a part-time court chamber composer, but Leopold graciously replied that he would see to it that my application would be granted. It was, eventually, doubtless in part because the Emperor felt guilty at how shabbily he and his late brother had treated my increasingly famous husband.
Though I had somehow become financially secure, I was not yet wealthy and could not rest. The world was finally beginning to understand the extent of Wolfi’s genius, and I now had the opportunity and means to expand upon that growing awareness. I organized memorial concerts of his music throughout Vienna, the result of which was great demand for his scores, which I sold to the highest bidders, but only to reputable buyers and publishers who understood their historic and financial value. That part of my business became lucrative, indeed.
I still had two boys to raise, and could now do so properly. They received their education, and Franzi in particular showed musical talent.
To supplement my income, I rented rooms to respectable travelers. One such tenant was a certain gentleman, Georg Nikolaus von Nissen, a Danish diplomat and writer. We soon established a fond friendship. Though he originally had planned a short stay, he remained with me for ten years, at which time we married and moved to Copenhagen, traveled throughout Europe, and eventually settled in Wolfi’s birth city of Salzburg.
These days, music is all about “passion.” It’s all they talk of: Passion. Which composer can out-passion the other. As if passion is the only true emotion. An excess of passion, like too much of anything, is a sickness. The only thing Wolfgang had an excess of was genius. Maybe that was his sickness. Maybe that’s why he was not ready for the world and the world was not ready for him.
His music did have passion, an abundance of it. Have you never listened to Don Giovanni or the G-Minor String Quintet or the C-Major Piano Concerto or–? Unlike anyone else’s music, his contained every shade of every other human emotion as well: joy in all its forms—no one else’s music could reflect so many facets of joy like Wolfgang’s, because he felt true joy—mischief, torment, despair...love. Finally, in death, he had achieved the eminence, which had eluded him in life, of being the world’s greatest composer. In death he achieved immortality.
Regardless of what the music historians have said, claiming with little basis that I was manipulative, conniving, impractical, flirtatious, and materialistic, I loved Wolfi and he loved me. What do they know? Do you know who these historians were, by any chance? For the most part, they were men. Così fan tutti: Men are like that.
I imagine there may be one question you have been wondering about: Did I reward Franz Süssmayr for completing the Requiem, as I had promised? Had he not lived up to his side of the bargain? Did I fulfill my carnal obligation? Well, that is one mystery I will let the music historians argue among themselves.
© 2020 by Gerald Elias
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