The Mozart Requiem and the Rossini Stabat Mater are connected historically (or perhaps hysterically)…so the young Richard Wagner would have us believe!
It is no secret that Richard Wagner (1813-1883) had a rocky and unrequited relationship with the artistic high society of Paris. As a hot-headed young man in his mid to late twenties, from late 1839 to 1842, he lived in Paris in impoverished fashion. To make a living, the young, undiscovered composer wrote articles for magazines, arranged the operas of others for publication and completed his own, unperformed, third and fourth operas: Rienzi and Der fliegende Holländer.Fast forward about seventeen years to November of 1859. We find Wagner has returned to Paris as a well-established composer. It was during this sojourn that he faced the debacle of the March 1861 performances of Tannhäuser. This infamous fiasco, which resounds throughout musical history, came at the hands (and cat-calls!) of the haughty bon vivants of the Jockey Club. Wagner had the audacity to compose a ballet to be danced in Act I of Tannhäuser; but the Jockey Clubbers demanded it be in Act II so as not to spoil their dinners—and/or assignations with the ballerinas! Wagner got his way, but the Jockey Club booed him out of the opera house and out of Paris.
Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868), on the other hand, had wonderful relationships with both the cultural elite and denizens of theatrical amphitheaters. It seems that Rossini was feted everywhere he went; his musical works were generally adored and one of his nicknames was “The Italian Mozart.”
