There’s a mystery surrounding the story of Mozart’s Requiem. With an endlessly fascinating enigma in the astonishing music that Mozart managed to compose, the composition has all the elements from a musical point of view.

The piece was born out of a genuinely bizarre commission from a courtly intermediary who asked Mozart to write a piece for Count von Walsegg. The count, known for his pretentiousness, wanted to pass off the piece as his own composition to commemorate the death of his wife.

Things didn’t quite work out that way and the Requiem will be forever associated with Mozart, the young composer of genius writing his first setting for the Mass for the Dead, and finding an absolutely distinctive musical voice.

Add Mozart’s tragically early death at the age of 35 after he had written around two-thirds of the work’s musical composition (after composing eight bars of the piece’s Lacrimosa, to be precise) and the romance of this work gathers an even more poignant significance. The Lacrimosa was to be the last words Mozart set to music, marking “that day of tears and mourning”.

Mozart’s Requiem will be performed at the Mdina Cathedral on Wednesday at 7.30pm. Entrance is free.