A week before Easter, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, will be honoured by the Cantare Audire Choir, four soloists and an ad hoc orchestra in a per-formance of the composer’s last work, the Requiem in D Minor.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, was born in Salzburg, Austria, on 27 January, 1756. After the passing of the celebration of Mozart’s birth 250 years ago, it may seem a bit ironic to honour the composer by performing his last work, and a funeral mass at that.

The Requiem, is often spoken of in large part because of its great power and melodic beauty. Lovingly written and exceedingly lovely in melody, Mozart put his heart and soul into the movements he managed to complete before death’s cruel hand intervened.

The work was composed under mysterious circumstances. In July of 1791, a masked stranger accosted Mozart and commissioned him to compose a Requiem (Mass for the dead). To Mozart, ill and morbid as he was at that time, it appeared that this stranger was a messenger from the other world sent to warn the composer that the time had come for him to compose his own Requiem.

On the afternoon of the eve of his death, after three of his friends arrived to comfort the dying composer, Mozart conducted an impromptu rehearsal of the completed parts of the Requiem, with himself and each man taking one of the parts. Then, as the group began singing the opening bars of the Lacrimosa, Mozart broke down completely and the rehearsal was aborted. At about one o’clock in the morning, on December 5, 1791, he turned his face to the wall and died.

After being blessed in front of the Crucifix Chapel of St. Stephen, Mozart’s remains were thrown into a pauper’s grave in the churchyard of St. Marx. One week later, when HIS widow, Constanze, returned with flowers, she could not find the grave. Because Mozart had died like a pauper, his grave had been left unmarked, his body unidentified. Thus passed the greatest musical genius this world has ever known.

The Requiem in Windhoek will be performed in the St Mary’s Cathedral on the 7th and 8th April 2006 at 20:00. The conductor is Ernst van Biljon and the soloists are Gretel Coetzee (soprano), Tina Tshupane (alto), Jacques le Roux (tenor) and Jaco Klopper (bass).

Tickets can be bought at the Medisun Pharmacy in the Wernhil Centre. Entrance is N$70 for adults and N$35 for school-going children.