Franz Xaver Süssmayr

• 1. Third in Line

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  Franz Xaver Süssmayr died in Vienna in 1803, at the age of 37. He had spent his final decade conducting at two of the city's most important theatres. He composed operas for their stages and church music for abbey halls. None of that output is what he is remembered for. The work that kept his name alive was someone else's. In 1791, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died in Vienna, leaving a Requiem unfinished. His widow Constanze was anxious that the piece be completed. She turned to Franz Jakob Freystädtler and then to Joseph Eybler. Neither man finished the task. Süssmayr was third.

• 2. From Schwanenstadt to Prague

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  Süssmayr was born in 1766 in Schwanenstadt, a town in upper Austria. His father, Franz Karl Süssmayr, gave him his first music lessons. He was later educated at Kremsmünster Abbey, where Georg Pasterwitz was among his teachers. At the abbey theatre, his early symphonies, cantatas, and church compositions were performed. By 1788, he had moved to Vienna and become both a student and a friend of Mozart.

  In 1791, Süssmayr accompanied Mozart on what would prove to be his final journey. The destination was Prague, where Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito was receiving its premiere. At Mozart's request, Süssmayr composed the secco recitatives for that opera. Secco recitatives are the speech-like vocal passages, accompanied sparsely by keyboard, that carry dialogue between the more formal arias. Writing them for La clemenza di Tito required intimate familiarity with Mozart's intentions and style. Mozart died in Vienna later that year. His widow Constanze began looking for someone who could complete the Requiem.

• 3. Completing the Requiem

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  Süssmayr's completion of Mozart's Requiem is listed in his catalogue as SmWV 105. His version became the standard edition heard in concert halls and recorded for generations. Critics and musicologists have since spent decades debating which portions are authentically Mozart's and which are Süssmayr's own contributions. That debate has never fully resolved. Süssmayr could draw on close personal knowledge of Mozart's compositional approach. His years as a student and his collaborative work on La clemenza di Tito had given him intimate insight into Mozart's methods. His time as a traveling companion deepened that familiarity further.

  He also composed a piano fantasia titled Agonia e morte di Mozart. Alongside the completed Requiem, his own sacred catalogue includes two masses and two independent requiems. In 1792, Süssmayr took up his first official conducting post, becoming the substitute conductor at the Burgtheater.

• 4. Conductor and Composer

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  From 1794 to 1803, Süssmayr served as conductor at the Theater am Kärntnertor. He also composed operas for Emanuel Schikaneder's stages: the Theater auf der Wieden and, later, the Theater an der Wien. His theatrical output included Moses oder der Auszug aus Ägypten, Der Spiegel von Arkadien, List und Zufall, and Soliman oder die drei Sultaninnen. Beethoven borrowed a theme from Soliman oder die drei Sultaninnen for his Variations on 'Tändeln und Scherzen', catalogued as WoO 76. A Süssmayr ballet choreographed by Salvatore Viganò premiered at La Scala on the 25th of April 1812. Niccolò Paganini drew on a theme from it for Le Streghe, his Opus 8, in 1813. Süssmayr's health declined during these years. His contemporaries attributed the deterioration to an unregulated lifestyle.

• 5. The Critics' Verdict

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  Max Dies wrote in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie in 1894 that Süssmayr's style was "smooth, pleasing, singable, but generally fashionably superficial." He added that "nowhere does a trace of idiosyncrasy shine out." The Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, published in 1880, offered a fuller portrait. It noted that Süssmayr's friends had called him a "second Mozart," while "more unbiased music critics" found in his work "neither originality nor poetic depth." The same lexicon acknowledged that his music had "melody and a charming, even folksy character." Audiences had received it with "a reasonably enthusiastic reception on the part of the public."

  Der Retter in Gefahr, Süssmayr's secular political cantata of 1796, waited over two centuries for its first complete performance. That performance was given in June 2012, in a new edition by Mark Nabholz and conducted by Terrence Stoneberg. His clarinet concerto, SmWV 501, was most probably written for Anton Stadler, Mozart's clarinetist, and scored for the basset clarinet. Dieter Klöcker recorded it for the Novalis label on a standard clarinet. Thea King's recording for Hyperion used a basset clarinet reconstruction prepared by Michael Freyhan. In 2021, Craig Hill published a completion for period basset clarinet. His Missa Solemnis in D has also been commercially recorded. Performances of his operas have returned to Kremsmünster, the monastery where his earliest compositions were first heard.