Franz Suessmayr

Franz Xaver Süssmayr (Süssmayr, Suessmayr) was an Austrian composer and conductor (born 1766 in Schwanenstadt, Upper Austria — died 17 September 1803 in Vienna). He is best known for completing Requiem in D minor (Mozart) K 626 after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death, and for composing popular operas and sacred works for Vienna’s musical theaters in the late 18th century.

He received his first musical training from his father and later studied at Kremsmünster Abbey, where Georg von Pasterwitz was among his teachers and where he composed early symphonies, cantatas, and church music performed in the abbey theatre. After serving as a principal singer in a provincial Austrian church, he moved to Vienna in the late 1780s, first studying with Antonio Salieri before becoming a student and close companion of Mozart, even living for a year in the Mozart household as a full member of the family.

Süssmayr accompanied Mozart to Prague in 1791 for the premiere of La clemenza di Tito and composed the opera’s secco recitatives at Mozart’s request. He also assisted as a copyist during Mozart’s work on The Magic Flute and contributed the second movement to what is known as Mozart’s first horn concerto. After Mozart’s death, his completion of the Requiem, undertaken at the request of Constanze Mozart, sparked significant debate throughout the 19th century concerning the scale and character of his contribution, yet his version remains the one traditionally performed.

From 1792 to 1794 he served as substitute conductor at the Burgtheater, and from 1794 to 1803 as conductor at the Theater am Kärntnertor, also contributing works to Emanuel Schikaneder’s stages. He composed around 25 operas, particularly comic works, including The Turk in Italy (also called The Muslim in Naples, 1794) and Soliman II or The Three Sultaninas (1799), the latter providing the theme for Beethoven’s Variations on ‘Tändeln und Scherzen’ WoO 76. His output also includes ballets, chamber music, symphonies, vocal works, and pieces such as the German Requiem and the Turkish Symphony.

After his death, his ballet Il noce di Benevento was premiered at La Scala in 1812; it later inspired Niccolò Paganini’s celebrated variations Le Streghe. His music was often described by early biographers as melodious and pleasing, though sometimes superficial, while later critics noted both its charm and its lack of strong originality.

Modern revivals have included performances of his operas at Kremsmünster and a 2012 performance of his secular political cantata Der Retter in Gefahr. His unfinished clarinet concerto, likely written for Anton Stadler and notable for its scoring for basset clarinet, has been recorded in several reconstructed versions, with a new completion for period instruments published in 2021.

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