Few works have generated a more frenzied exegesis than Mozart's Requiem. Very quickly, it came to be seen as the final prayers of a dying man commending himself to God, struggling on his deathbed to put down on paper as much music as he still could, before being carried off to the afterlife.

To spice up the legend, a whole range of anecdotes of varying veracity and credibility. And there you have it: the swan song of a genius cut short by an untimely death, the ultimate masterpiece, the paragon of all requiems to come, the one we call THE Requiem as we speak of THE Ninth.