Steve Schwartz wrote:

>Sam Brown wrote:
>
>>I would like to know some different thoughts on the various editions
>>of Mozart's Requiem...Do you feel that one edition (Sussmayer, Maunder,
>>etc.) is better than the others?  I am specifically comparing the
>>traditional Sussmayer to the more recent Maunder (in which he rewrites
>>and re-orchestrates the Sussmayer movements) and would like to know some
>>of your opinions...
>
>I've dealt with this issue myself.  I come down on Sussmayr's side, for
>various reasons.  The two chief ones are that the style was "natural"
>to him and that he's the only editor actually to have talked with Mozart
>himself.

Precisely.  If I may be permitted to quote myself, here are the opening
paragraphs of a review of a performance in Victoria in November 2000

   There is a fascination in the unfinished works of any great
   composer.  During the last century many such works have been
   completed by musicologists - Schubert's "Unfinished", Bruckner's
   9th, Mahler's 10th, Bach's Art of Fugue to name but a handful;
   but none has established such a firm place in the repertoire as
   Franz Xavier Sussmayr's completion of Mozart's Requiem.

   The arguments still rage over exactly how much of the Requiem
   Sussmayr actually composed - according to him it was the Sanctus,
   Benedictus and Agnus Dei - and how much of those parts used
   material from Mozart's own sketches.  But one thing is surely
   clear: as a man of Mozart's time, steeped in the contemporary
   performing tradition, who knew Mozart well and who sang and
   discussed the unfinished Requiem with its composer, Sussmayr
   undertook his awesome task with a depth of knowledge and
   understanding the modern musicologist can only dream of.

Deryk Barker
dbarker @camosun.bc.ca