Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Requiem, K. 626 (Quartet Transcription by Peter Lichtenthal, Arr. for String Ensemble)

Peter Lichtenthal and Mozart’s Requiem

Peter, or Pietro, Lichtenthal was born on 10 May 1780 in Pressburg, then in the Kingdom of Hungary and now Bratislava, ten years after Beethoven’s birth and eleven years before Mozart’s death. He died in Milan on 18 August 1853, having settled there permanently in 1810. At the time of his arrival, the Lombard city was under French rule and participated actively in the scientific and technological developments of the period.

His life spanned the emergence and decline of entire historical, musical and artistic eras. The Italian instrumental tradition represented by Giovanni Battista Sammartini, Gaetano Pugnani, Felice Giardini and Giuseppe Maria Cambini had laid the foundations for new styles; gradually, the ascendancy of Italian bel canto reshaped musical life both within and beyond Italy. Niccolò Paganini was a notable exception in this increasingly operatic landscape. Lichtenthal knew him personally and wrote one of the early, richly anecdotal accounts of the Genoese violinist’s life.

Lichtenthal was more a witness and observer of events in their historical setting than an innovator. Much of our biographical information comes from historical dictionaries, including that of François-Joseph Fétis, whom he met in Milan in 1841. Studies by Giovanni Sartori and Mariangela Donà are particularly important in clarifying his early years. Fétis acknowledged that some details had not been verified, but nevertheless stated that Lichtenthal had become acquainted with Italy in his youth and had studied medicine under Dr Frank. The early accounts are not entirely consistent. Another historical dictionary records his violin, piano and thoroughbass studies in his native city, followed by medical studies in Vienna from 1799 to 1808 and work in Viennese hospitals until his move to Milan in 1810.

During his years in Vienna, Lichtenthal came into contact with Beethoven, Haydn and Constanze Mozart. He became friendly with Mozart’s sons and dedicated a piano trio to Franz Xaver. His closest and most enduring friendship, however, was with Karl Thomas Mozart, who also settled in Italy.

Alongside his writings on composition and his fundamental Dizionario e bibliografia della musica (1826), Lichtenthal devoted his Viennese and early Milanese years to composing. His output included a substantial body of chamber music, more than fifteen symphonies—several of which survive in quartet versions—ballets for La Scala, string quartets and trios, a harp sonata, and numerous dances for the salons of the period. Much of this original music is preserved in the Noseda collection at Milan’s Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory. These manuscripts reveal a mature composer, strongly attached to earlier stylistic models and unmistakably influenced by Mozart. In later life he resisted the new styles associated with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, remaining firmly attached to the musical past he had loved.

A committed advocate of Mozart’s music, Lichtenthal expressed his views in the Cenni biografici intorno al celebre maestro Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1816) and, later, in Mozart e le sue creazioni (1842). Both testify to his allegiance to the Austrian composer’s language. His arrangements belong to a widespread tradition of bringing large-scale works to new audiences through smaller performing forces. Like the opera paraphrases that circulated so widely, they offered a practical means of disseminating music beyond its original performance setting. The Requiem presented here is a particularly revealing example.

An unfinished masterpiece

Mozart’s Requiem, K. 626, left unfinished at his death in 1791, remains one of the most compelling examples of a major work interrupted by its composer’s death. It invites comparison with unfinished projects by Bach, Mahler and Puccini. Its fascination is historical as well as musical: the surviving score reveals the relationship between an extraordinary creative conception and the practical work required to make it performable.

The circumstances of its composition have attracted many legends. Accounts of Mozart’s final days are difficult to reconcile, while the familiar cinematic image of Salieri at his bedside, taking down the dying composer’s dictation, belongs to fiction. What is certain is that Mozart died before he could complete the commission. His worsening illness coincided with an exceptionally demanding period of work, which also produced the Clarinet Concerto, K. 622, and The Magic Flute. The Requiem was commissioned anonymously on behalf of Count Franz von Walsegg in memory of his wife; Walsegg intended to present the work as his own.

What, then, survives of Mozart’s conception, and what was supplied by Joseph Eybler and subsequently Franz Xaver Süssmayr, who had also studied with Salieri? At Mozart’s death, the manuscript was magnificent but incomplete. The opening Introitus, Requiem aeternam, was fully orchestrated. Substantial drafts survive for the Kyrie, Sequence and Offertory, including vocal parts, bass lines and indications of instrumental writing. The Lacrimosa breaks off after eight bars. The two sections of the Offertory, Domine Jesu and Hostias, are extensively drafted. A separate sketch for an Amen fugue also survives, but this was not incorporated into Süssmayr’s completion and therefore does not appear in Lichtenthal’s transcription.

Eybler contributed orchestration to portions of the Sequence before withdrawing. Süssmayr then supplemented the instrumentation of the surviving movements, completed the Lacrimosa, and supplied the Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei. For the concluding Communion he reused music from the beginning of the work. His completion made it possible to perform the Requiem as a coherent whole, while leaving a continuing challenge for listeners and scholars: distinguishing Mozart’s surviving manuscript from the contributions of those who completed it.

Despite its unfinished state, Mozart’s Requiem remains one of the most evocative and significant works of spiritual expression in the orchestral and choral repertoire. Lichtenthal’s transcription, originally for string quartet and performed here by a larger string ensemble, concentrates on its essential musical lines with remarkable care. At many moments, its clarity seems to bring us closer to the original creative impulse, allowing the intensity of Mozart’s conception to emerge through a different instrumental perspective.

Original text by Edmondo Filippini; original English revision by Francesca Machi. English revised and historical details corrected for this edition.