Requiem in B MH 838

The Requiem in B flat major is Johann Michael Haydn’s second setting of the liturgical text of the Mass of the dead [another Requiem, MH 599, has since been identified as the work of Father Georg Pasterwiz] and it is also his last work, his “Opus ultimum.” On commission from Empress Maria Theresia he began the composition in 1805, but due to a serious illness he made only slow progress with the work. Like W. A. Mozart, he could not complete this Requiem. In 1839 Father Gunther Kronecker, Benedictine Father in the monastery of Kremsmünster in Upper Austria, completed the torso “in the spirit and style” of Haydn. During his student days in Vienna Father Gunther belonged to the circleof friends who were associated with Franz Schubert.