A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Walsegg, Franz

WALSEGG, Franz, Graf von, known for the mystification he practised in regard to Mozart's Requiem, was a musical amateur living at Stuppach, a village belonging to the Lichtenstein family, near Gloggnitz, at the foot of the Semmering. He played the flute and cello, had quartet parties twice a week at his house, and on Sundays acted plays, in which he took part himself with his family, clerks, and servants. He had moreover the ambition to figure as a composer, and to this end commissioned various composers to write him unsigned works, which he copied, had performed, and asked the audience to guess who the composer was. The audience being complaisant enough to suggest his own name he would smilingly accept the imputation. On the death of his wife, Anna, Edle von Flammberg, on Feb. 14, 1791, he sent his steward Leutgeb to Mozart to bespeak a Requiem, which he had fetched by the same hand after Mozart's death. He copied the score, headed it 'Requiem composto dal Conte Walsegg,' and conducted a solemn performance of it in memory of his wife on Dec. 14, 1793. On his death the score, completed by Süssmayer, went to his heiress Countess Sternberg, and passing through various hands, finally reached the Court Library of Vienna (1838). [For further particulars of the autograph score, see vol. ii. p. 402.]

[ C. F. P. ]