The Great Mass in C minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) is one of the most magnificent works of the composer's vast oeuvre, and is one of the most celebrated sacred music compositions of the world. Mozart promised to compose the Great Mass in gratitude for the recovery of his fiancée Constanze Weber. He began writing the work in Vienna in the summer of 1782, just before their wedding. Mozart's father, Leopold Mozart, was unhappy with his son's choice of fiancée, although in his letters to his father, Wolfgang was full of praise for Constanze: "She is not ugly, but at the same time she is not beautiful. Her beauty consists entirely of two small black eyes and a shapely figure. She is not witty, but she has enough understanding to fulfil all her duties as a wife and mother... and the best heart in the world. I love her and she loves me with all her heart. Tell me, could I ask for a better wife?" - wrote Mozart. However, his father was not convinced. For reasons that cannot be explained, his letters to his son were later destroyed by Constanze. The couple married in August 1782, but the Mass that Mozart had promised to write remained unfinished... The reasons for this are still unknown.

 

Another mystery is connected with the Mass: why did Mozart, after being freed from his job at the Salzburg court and moving to Vienna, where there was no demand for church music, set out to compose a work of this genre? The most logical explanation, which is generally supported by the score, is the great discovery that Mozart made before he began to write the Mass: it was late Baroque music, which had been considered hopelessly outdated. In the Great Mass, Mozart combined two aspects: the pomp and solemnity typical of Salzburg at that time, and the influence of the Baroque music of Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Friedrich Handel. The work was premiered in Salzburg in October 1783 in the presence of the composer himself, who was visiting his hometown to present his wife to his father and sister.