Mozart's Requiem
Reception, Work, Completion

A fresh evaluation of Mozart's Requiem which focuses on historical and current understandings in fiction, drama, film, criticism and performance.

Simon P. Keefe (Author)

9781107532953, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 July 2015

278 pages, 3 tables 48 music examples
24.5 x 17 x 1.5 cm, 0.48 kg

'It is astounding that Keefe opens up new ground in large areas … A far-reaching book … All in all, a first-class monograph, outstandingly produced and printed, which will be read cover to cover as well as used for reference.' Manfred Hermann Schmid, Mozart-Jahrbuch 2013

Presenting a fresh interpretation of Mozart's Requiem, Simon P. Keefe redresses a longstanding scholarly imbalance whereby narrow consideration of the text of this famously incomplete work has taken precedence over consideration of context in the widest sense. Keefe details the reception of the Requiem legend in general writings, fiction, theatre and film, as well as discussing criticism, scholarship and performance. Evaluation of Mozart's work on the Requiem turns attention to the autograph score, the document in which myths and musical realities collide. Franz Xaver Süssmayr's completion (1791–2) is also re-appraised and the ideological underpinnings of modern completions assessed. Overall, the book affirms that Mozart's Requiem, fascinating for interacting musical, biographical, circumstantial and psychological reasons, cannot be fully appreciated by studying only Mozart's activities. Broad-ranging hermeneutic approaches to the work, moreover, supersede traditionally limited discursive confines.

Introduction: Mozart's Requiem in context
1. The Requiem legend in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
2. Criticism and scholarship from 1800 to the present day
3. The Requiem in performance
4. Mozart's work on the Requiem: sounds and strategies
5. After Mozart: the Requiem completion, 1791–2
6. Modern completions of the Requiem
Epilogue: a Requiem for the future.

Subject Areas: Individual composers & musicians, specific bands & groups [AVH], Romantic music [c 1830 to c 1900 AVGC5], Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4], Music [AV]