The Requiem in D minor, K. 626,
is a requiem mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791).
Mozart composed part of the
Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on December 5 the same year.
A completed version dated 1792 by
Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who commissioned
the piece for a Requiem service to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's
death on February 14.
Walsegg probably intended to pass
the Requiem off as his own composition, as he is known to have done with other
works. This plan was frustrated by a public benefit performance for Mozart's
widow Constanze. She was responsible for a number of stories surrounding the
composition of the work, including the claims that Mozart received the
commission from a mysterious messenger who did not reveal the commissioner's
identity, and that Mozart came to believe that he was writing the requiem for
his own funeral.
