Mozart’s Requiem

He touched the source from which all music originates. He expressed himself in a spontaneous way with taste and tactfulness – this is how American composer Aaron Copland spoke about Mozart. It’s hard to disagree. A genius whose lyrical soul was combined with a gross sense of humour. A magnificently talented virtuoso for whom composing came as easily as if it had been breathing.

Requiem KV 626 is his last unfinished piece. It was ordered by a mysterious messenger with a letter from an anonymous client. Mozart was already very ill, and delayed fulfilling the commission as he was busy composing music to the opera ‘The Magic Flute’. The work on Requiem was for him a race against creeping death. Even on the eve of his death, he reached out for the score to work on the most touching part of the work ‘Lacrimosa dies illa…’ He died assuming he was writing Requiem for himself. However, no music was played during his funeral. On the 225th anniversary of the composer’s death, the piece will be heard, to take the listeners of the Philharmonic in Szczecin to a place filled with reverie and reflection.