Maurerische Trauermusik

• 1. Introduction

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  The Maurerische Trauermusik, or Masonic Funeral Music, is a short orchestral work in C minor that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote in 1785. It is catalogued as K. 477, with the alternate number K. 479a. Mozart composed it as a member of the Freemasons, and it was written to be heard at a funeral. The piece raises a few questions. Who was being mourned, and what did the lodge want to hear? Why does the date in Mozart's own catalogue look like a mistake? And what does a work from 1785 have to do with a performance in 2021?

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• 2. Two Brethren Mourned

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  The funeral service took place on the 17th of November 1785. It honored two of Mozart's Masonic brethren, Duke Georg August of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Count Franz Esterházy von Galántha. Both men belonged to the Viennese aristocracy. Mozart did not write the music for patrons or for a concert hall. He wrote it for fellow lodge members, in memory of two of their own. The service was the occasion for which the music was composed. Its sound, however, was shaped by something much older than the lodge.

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• 3. Chant and Basset Horns

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  The music is built on a Gregorian chant, using the reciting tone known as tonus peregrinus. That ties a Masonic ceremony to a very old church melody. The orchestra is unusual too. Mozart scored the work for 2 oboes, 1 clarinet, 3 basset horns, 1 contrabassoon and 2 horns, with the usual strings. The three basset horns give the ensemble a dark, reedy color. Two of the basset horn parts were written for particular men, the fellow Freemasons Anton David and Vincent Springer. The score therefore reflects the lodge's own musicians as well as the occasion. The manuscript that preserves it has a story of its own.

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• 4. An Uncertain Catalogue Entry

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  Mozart kept a catalogue of his works, and he entered this piece under the heading "July 1785". That heading may be an error. The funeral did not take place until November, and the most likely explanation is that he forgot to add a new heading for that month. The entry therefore sits under the wrong date. The composer's own handwritten score, known as the autograph manuscript, survives and is preserved in the Berlin State Library. Centuries later, the music found a new role beside a far larger work.

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• 5. A Prelude to the Requiem

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  In 2021 the baroque orchestra La Banda, conducted by Sebastian Ruf, premiered a new arrangement of the Maurerische Trauermusik. It was played as an introduction to a performance of Mozart's Requiem in D minor, K. 626. The arrangement was made to match the Requiem's orchestration. That meant 2 basset horns in F, 2 bassoons, 2 trumpets in D, 3 trombones, timpani and strings. A funeral piece written for a lodge in 1785 was thus recast to sit alongside Mozart's best-known music for the dead.

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