Comments on: Where can I find Mozart's original manuscript?

Question: Where can I find Mozart's original manuscript?

dabradfo — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:37:51 -0800

Does anyone know where I can find reproductions or online scans of Mozart's original manuscript of the Requiem Mass K.626 in Mozart's own hand? It doesn't matter if it's freely available or reasonably purchasable.

By: MsMolly

MsMolly — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 13:57:04 -0800

It looks like this recording has a CD-ROM track which scrolls the manuscript while the music plays. Not sure if that's what you're looking for, though.

By: coriolisdave

coriolisdave — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 14:41:22 -0800

I have that CD -- it uses Flash, so I don't know if you can print it out (if that's what you want to do). The recording, however, is phenomenally good.

Also, not sure if you know this or not, but -- Mozart didn't actually write most of the Requiem - he died after writing just the first couple of movements and a little bit of sketching. The rest of it was finished off by one of his students (Salieri? I forget).

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 11 Oct 2005 16:08:00 -0800

You can get a scan of one page here, as well as a good history of the composition:

The traditional completion is in fact the work of between three and five composers! In addition to Mozart, the others are Freystädtler (possibly), Eybler (certainly), Stadler (probably), and Süssmayr (definitely). The latter did the bulk of the work, but compared to the genius of Mozart he was unfortunately a composer of quite limited technique. However, it should be noted that the movements Mozart did compose have all of the voice parts and the orchestral bass line fully scored, with occasional accompanying motifs written here and there in the other instruments.

It's very strange, considering Mozart's unquestioned genius, that we have a hard time figuring out exactly which bits are his.