Who was The Mysterious Masked Messenger who visited Mozart ?

Perhaps the most mysterious legend about Mozart is that of the "Masked Messenger".

This mysterious masked messenger is also known historically as the "Man in Gray" , "The Mysterious Messenger" , "The Gray Messenger".

The story of the masked messenger was featured prominently in the movie “ Amadeus".

 

        Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

How much of this story is true ?

When Mozart died in the early morning hours of December 5, 1791, he left his final masterpiece, the Requiem, unfinished.

A few months later, a completed score of the Requiem was delivered to its anonymous commissioner.


How was the Requiem completed and how would Mozart have completed it had he lived?

These mysteries have tantalized musicians for over two centuries.

Mozart received the commission to compose the Requiem from the “Mysterious Messenger" in the summer of 1791. 

The Messenger paid half the commission in advance, but insisted on keeping the name of the person who was requesting the piece, anonymous.

In the movie “ Amadeus”, Antonio Salieri, the court composer, is portrayed as the person behind Mozart‘s early passing.

The reality is not so clear.

While it’s true that there was some rivalry between the two and that Salieri may have had some jealousy towards Mozart, and at times may have blocked the success of Mozart’s operas and put obstacles in his way, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that he was responsible for Mozart’s early demise.

The two even seemed to be on friendly terms towards the end of his life. 

For example, in 1791, Mozarts’s The Magic Flute was a great success, and Mozart frequently invited guests to the performances, including Salieri.


Now, the circumstances surrounding the composition of Mozart's last major work, the "Requiem in D," is filled with myth.

 

When sifting through fact from fiction, the real story seems to go something like this :

*   The story begins in July 1791. There is a knock at Mozart's door.

 A mysterious tall stranger in a three-cornered hat and gray cloak hands him a letter asking if he would be interested in writing a Requiem Mass, his fee for composing the work, and a possible delivery date.

Would he be kind enough send his reply to a certain address ?

 

*  After consulting with his wife, Constanze, Mozart accepted the commission, quoted a price, but said that he could not promise a date for delivery. 

Because lately Mozart had been rather sickly and not able to work a great deal.

 

*  Some days later, the stranger reappeared bearing a bag of money for the composer. 

He said that Mozart's price had been so reasonable that his employer had promised a hefty bonus, and that he should complete the work as quickly as possible.

We now know the anonymous person who sent the messenger was Count Franz von Walsegg (1763-1827) ,who wished to commemorate his wife, Countess Anna von Walsegg, with a Requiem Mass, which was to be played every year on the anniversary of her death. The Countess had died in February 1791.

 

                                        Mozart's wife Constanze

Count von Walsegg was an amateur musician who often commissioned works from well known composers, and then passed them off as his own.

The mysterious cloaked messenger was von Walsegg's steward, Franz Anton Leutgeb.

Count von Walsegg was possibly one of the most peculiar characters in music history.

He loved to commission works from notable composers and perform them privately at his castle and pass them off as his own compositions.

One of the Counts conditions when commissioning a work was that the composer relinquish all claims to the piece.

Von Walsegg was an amateur musician and composer and would lead his audiences to believe these new works were his.

It is known that there were several composers who eagerly supplied him on a regular basis, but now he needed something other than the quartets he normally obtained.

The mysterious messenger, Franz Anton Leitgeb, was an instrumentalist at Count von Walsegg’s frequent musical gatherings, and he was chosen by the Count to secure the commission.

When Franz Anton Leitgeb went to Mozart’s residence with the message and knocked on the door, Mozart opened his door to a tall, gaunt man in a three-cornered hat and gray cloak ( it‘s not known for sure if he even wore a mask or not ), whose portrait (found in 1954) reveals a man with " a face to choose for that of a hanging judge," according to Mozart biographer Arthur Hutchings.

 
From that moment on Mozart seemed unable to dismiss this "mysterious caller" from his mind.

Thus the "Requiem," composed as it was for someone unknown to Mozart , whose messenger was hardly the picture of congeniality, was written amid a scenario of mystery, illness and intrigue.

After a few meetings with this "stranger", Mozart agreed, half the commission was paid (30 ducats) and a promissory note given for the balance upon completion.

But before he could begin full time work on the requiem, he had two other commissions he needed to complete.

In mid July, he received a commission to compose an opera, La clemenza di Tito, for the festivities surrounding the coronation on Sept. 6 of Leopold II as King of Bohemia.

In August, Mozart worked mainly on La clemenza di Tito and completed it by Sept. 5 in 18 days.

On Aug. 25, Mozart traveled to Prague.

On Sept. 6, Mozart conducted the premiere of La clemenza di Tito.

Mozart was starting to feel ill and he quickly returned to Vienna for medical attention. Also, the premiere of The Magic Flute was next on his schedule.

Mozart apparently recovered from his illness and was in good spirits when he set to work finishing the Magic Flute, his last opera.

On September 30, 1791 The Magic Flute was premiered at the Freihaus-Theater auf der Wiedenon with Mozart himself conducting.

It was a resounding success and Mozart attended many of the performances.

However, during these last few months, Mozart had begun thinking that the end was near.

But, he didn't believe he was dying from any ordinary disease.

He firmly believed that he was being poisoned, and he told this to his wife Constanze.

She tried to soothe her husband and convince him that it was all in his imagination, but Mozart would not be comforted.

Mozart was quite superstitious, and he became convinced that the Messenger had come to warn him of his own mortality, that maybe the Messenger was even the Angel of Death, and that he was indeed composing the work for his own death.

In any case, after La Clemenza di Tito and the Magic Flute were done, he returned to the Requiem.

However, concerned with this morbid fascination, his wife Constanze hid the score and forbade him to work on the Requiem for several weeks.
He later resumed working on it.

As he worked more and more on it, he became very attached to the piece, and he worked feverishly on it, several times fainting over his work.

He almost seemed to be in a race against time, hurrying to finish the piece before what he felt was his inevitable passing.

But in mid-November, Mozart became ill again and took to his bed.

He was surrounded by family and friends, and he also gathered a choir of friends around his bedside the afternoon of December 4th to sing together the parts he had completed.

Later his fever became even more severe and the doctor came and prescribed cold compresses on his burning head, and these gave him such a shock that he did not regain consciousness before he passed away.

The last thing he did was to try and mouth the sound of the timpani in his Requiem .

He died less than twelve hours later, on December 5, 1791, just 2 months before his 36^th birthday.

Constanze was distraught with grief.

Constanze later presented the manuscript to Walsegg , but not before she had made a copy of the music.

This was fortunate because the Requiem might have been lost to the world if Walsegg had been able to claim he was the composer.

As it was, he could not do that since Mozart's composition was already being performed by others, and it was already known that it was composed by Mozart.

After Mozart's death, in order to complete the Requiem, Constanze had tried to find composers to finish the Requiem.

She decided on his student and assistant Franz Sussmayer because Mozart had discussed in detail the finished movements, including the orchestration, with Sussmayer.

They had also played and sang what was completed before Mozart's death.
The Requiem is about an hour long, there are fifteen movements, and Mozart had composed and finished the four part vocal score and some of the instrumentations all the way through the first 11 movements.

Then starting with the 12^th movement, the Lacrimosa , he had finished only through the eighth measure and portions of the instrumentation.

Franz Sussmayer then finished the Lacrimosa and composed the last three movements, the Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei himself in order to complete the work, following instructions given to him by Mozart.

And so Mozart's last major composition was finally completed.

Mozart’s Requiem is a timeless, gorgeous piece, filled with beauty, drama and power.