Masonic Funeral Music K477

Mozart enrolled as a Freemason, at the lodge Zur Wohltätigkeit in Vienna, in December 1784 and retained his allegiance to the fraternity until the end of his life. Indeed, he took Freemasonry so seriously, both its principles and its rituals, that it influenced not only his religious and political thinking but also his music. His late opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), written in collaboration with a Fremason librettist, is a clear demonstration of that.

Among the several pieces Mozart composed for masonic occasions, the most impressive is the Maurerische Trauermusik (Masonic Funeral Music) which was performed at a memorial service for two fellow masons in Vienna in 1785. Crucially coloured by double bassoon and the basset horn parts written for two lodge members, Anton David and Vinzent Springer, it is an appropriately dark-tinged inspiration, short in duration but long in meaningful expression. It begins with lamenting oboes symbolically linked in thirds and ensrhines at its heart the plainchant tonus peregrinus, introduced by the two oboes and a clarinet and later taken up by all the wind against a dramatic counterpoint on the strings. The work ends not in the C minor in which it began but in C major - unexpectedly but in accordance with masonic principles.