When Mozart’s Requiem in D minor was completed in 1792, it was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg. He was the man who originally commissioned the piece to form part of a Requiem service in commemoration of the anniversary of his wife’s death.
It’s likely that Walsegg fully intended to pass the work off as his own, since he was a mere amateur chamber musician who regularly commissioned work by talented composers and then claimed them to be his own.
Mozart’s wife, Constanze, struggled with Walsegg for 12 whole months before he finally gave in and acknowledged Mozart as the true composer of Requiem in D minor.
Regardless of the composers behind the Requiem in D minor and how much Mozart was involved, it’s still a wonderful, emotionally-evocative piece that countless people around the world enjoy just as much today as when it was first performed centuries ago.
Here is the late Claudio Abbado, leading the amazingly sad “Lacrimosa” from the Requiem by Mozart:
