Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 8.djvu/164

 314 ARTISTS AND AUTHORS well spare the trouble of finding out who had given this commission, for it would be entirely useless. We now know that the commission had really been given by Count Walsegg, a foolish nobleman, whose wife had died, and who wanted, by transcribing Mozart's score, to pass it off as his own composition — and this he actually did after the composer's death. Poor Mozart, in the weak state of health in which he now was, with nerves unstrung and over-excited brain, was strangely impressed by this visit, and soon the fancy took firm possession of him that the messenger had arrived with a mandate from the unseen world, and that the " Requiem " he was to write was for himself. Not the less did he ar- dently set to work on it. Hardly, however, was it commenced than he was com- pelled to write another opera, " La Clemenza di Tito," for which a commission had been given him by the Bohemian Estates, for production on the occasion of the Emperor Leopold's coronation in their capital. This was accomplished in the short space of eighteen days, and though it does not contain the best music, yet the overture and several of the numbers are full of a piquant beauty and live- liness well suiting the festival of a people's rejoicing. But a far greater work, the " Zauberflote," was produced in Vienna shortly afterward. It did not take very well at first, but subsequent performances went better. His labors in bringing out the " Zauberflote " over, Mozart returned to the " Requiem " he had already commenced, but while writing he often had to sink back in his chair, being seized with short swoons. Too plainly was his strength exhausted, but he persisted in his solemn work. One bright November morning he was walking with Constanze in the Prater, and sadly pointing out to her the falling leaves, and speaking of death, with tears in his eyes, he added", " I well know I am writing this ' Requiem ' for myself. My own feelings tell me that I shall not last long. No doubt some one has given me poison — I cannot get rid of this thought." With these gloomy fancies haunting his mind, he rapidly grew worse, and soon could not leave his room. The performances of the " Zau- berflote " were still going on, and extraordinarily successful. He took the great- est interest in hearing of them, and at night would take out his watch and note the time — " Now the first act is over, now is the time for the great Queen of Night." The day before his death he said to his wife, " Oh, that I could only once more hear my " Flauto Magico !" humming, in scarcely audible voice, the lively bird-catcher song. The same day, at two o'clock in the afternoon, he called his friends together, and asked for the score of his nearly completed " Requiem " to be laid on his bed. Benedict Schack sang the soprano ; his brother-in-law, Hofer, the tenor; Gerl, the bass ; and Mozart himself took the alto in a weak but delicately clear voice. They had got through the various parts till they came to the " Lacrymosa," when Mozart burst into tears, and laid the score aside. The next day (Sunday), he was worse, and said to Sophie, his sister-in-law, " I have the taste of death on my tongue, I smell the grave, and who can comfort my Constanze, if you don't stay here ? " In her account of his last moments, she says : " I found Sussmayer sitting by Mozart's bed. The well-known ' Requi- em ' was lying on the coverlet, and Mozart was explaining to Sussmayer the