MOZART AND THE PRACTICE OF SACRED MUSIC, 1781-91 a ...

The identity of the person or persons who wrote the non-autograph entries in the
Kyrie has been one of the great mysteries of Requiem scholarship. Nowak already noted in
the introduction to the NMA edition that the doubling notation in the woodwind, brass and
upper strings looked “krank,” and made the implausible suggestion that Mozart wrote these
parts when he was too ill to compose but was still capable of “mechanical” work. 181 Nowak
subsequently published an article retracting his earlier theory and proposing that the upper
strings and woodwind were entered by Franz Jakob Freystädtler, the trumpets and timpani
by Süssmayr. 182 Freystädtler and Mozart’s first known association in Vienna dates from
1786, when Mozart posted bail for “Gaulimauli” after the latter was arrested in connection
with an allegedly stolen piano. 183 Mozart apparently employed Freystädtler to produce a copy
of the piano concerto K. 456, and his hand appears in the autograph of the string quintet K.
516. 184 In addition, Freystädtler began to copy Handel’s chorus, “See, the conqu’ring hero
comes,” found in both Joshua and Judas Maccabeus, onto a Mozart sketchleaf (Skb 1788a)
before abandoning the effort; see Figure 5.19. Freystädtler’s authorship of this fragment is
overlooked by the NMA. 185
181 Nowak, NMA I/1/2/i, ix.
182 Nowak, “Instrumentalstimmen,” 191-201.
183 See Michael Lorenz, “Mozarts Haftungserklärung für Freystädtler: Eine Chronologie,” in Mozart-Jahrbuch
1998 (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1999), 1-19.
184 Michael Lorenz, “Franz Jakob Freystädtler (1761-1841): Neue Forschungsergebnisse zu seiner Biographie
und seinen Spuren im Werk Mozarts,” Acta Mozartiana 44, no. 3/4 (1997): 101-08. See also MVC, 26 n51.
185 The two blank staves included in the brace below the choir may imply that Freystädtler’s Vorlage was a vocal
score. The leaf contains sketches by Mozart for the canon Gehn wir im Prater K. 558 and other contrapuntal
material.
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