[Accipiter_Phi]

K. 626: an interesting choice for an Avalon handle.

Köchel-Verzeichnis 626: Requiem in D minor

Mozart's last symphony, mysteriously commissioned by an anonymous messenger shortly before the coronation of Emperor Leopold and before Mozart was commissioned to go to Prague.

Mozart is instructed to write according to his mood... according to his current emotional state; which was the frame of mind of a dying man whom felt himself poisoned.

On his return [from Prague] he at once took up the Requiem, and worked at it with much effort and keen interest: but his illness visibly increased its hold on him and made him dark and melancholy. His wife noticed it with sadness.

One day when she was driving with him in the Prater to divert and cheer him, and they both sat there alone, Mozart began to talk of death, and maintained that he was writing the Requiem for himself. Tears were in the eyes of this sensitive man. "I am only too conscious," he continued, "my end will not be long in coming: for sure, someone has poisoned me! I cannot rid my mind of this thought."

This speech fell heavily on his wife's heart; she was scarcely able to comfort him, and to show him the groundlessness of his heavy imaginings. As she was of the opinion that he was sickening from some illness, and the Requiem was overstraining his sensitive nerves, she called the doctor and took away the score of the Requiem....

On the day of his death he had the score brought to his bed. "Did I not say that I was writing this Requiem for myself?" he said, and carefully looked through the whole score with moist eyes. It was the last painful, parting glance at his beloved art -- a presentiment of his immortality!

Immediately after his death, on Dec 5 1791, the messenger announced himself, asked for the work, unfinished as it was, and received it. From that moment the widow did not see him again, nor did she learn the least thing about the Requiem or the man who had commissioned it. Every reader can imagine for himself that they tried hard to seek out the mysterious messenger, but all means and attempts were fruitless.

His wife later commissioned two of Mozart's former pupils, Joseph Eybler & Franz Xaver Süssmayr to complete instrumentation and the 3 remaining movements.

K626, Is speaking on Avalon your last "movement," on behalf of your passion? Like Mozart, this requiem is for yourself, no?

I hope you are not ill, my friend.
I hope this day finds you well as I hope that you are merely here to brighten your cap.