Requiem Mass

(Missa pro defunctis, Missa defunctorum).

In the Roman Catholic rite, a votive Mass on behalf of the dead. It may be sung on the day of burial and on succeeding anniversaries, as well as on the third, seventh and 30th days following interment. (In the 4th century commemorations occurred on the ninth and 40th days in certain places.) It is celebrated also in memory of the faithful departed on All Souls' Day, 2 November. The name derives from the first word of the best known of the introits for such occasions: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine.

1. Chant.

2. Polyphonic settings to 1600.

3. 1600 to 1900.

4. After 1900.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THEODORE KARP (1), FABRICE FITCH (2), BASIL SMALLMAN (3–4)

Requiem Mass

1. Chant.

The celebration of the Eucharist in honour of the dead is mentioned as early as the late 2nd century Acta Johannis, and in a Smyrnese document (Martyrium Polycarpi) of similar date; the roots of this practice are likely to be much older still. Yet no texts for the musical portions appear in surviving 8th- and 9th-century textual sources for the gradual. The earliest sources for the chants are F-CHRm 47 and LA 239, both from the 10th century. The repertory grew rapidly from the 10th to the 14th centuries with the result that not fewer than 16 introits, 14 graduals, 12 tracts, 20 offertories, 36 communions and even seven alleluias survive from the Middle Ages. Chants for the Requiem also survive from the Old Roman and Ambrosian (Milanese) rites.

Of the 105 known requiem chants in the Gregorian repertory, 58 are specific to the Mass for the Dead, while the remainder are borrowed from earlier masses, often on the basis of textual appropriateness. Approximately two-thirds of the 105 represent local practice, surviving in three or fewer sources each. Only some of the remainder were known in both east and west Europe. The variety in the repertory is in part a reflection of regional differences; in part it is a result of some manuscripts presenting more than one formulary for Masses for the Dead and other sources giving alternative chants within the framework of a single formulary. Approximately 300 different formularies are known. While some medieval chants created for the Requiem use melodic formulae familiar from the standard repertory and others are clearly based on pre-existing chants, there is also a group that shows no obvious use of standard Gregorian turns of phrase.

After the proliferation of votive masses during the 13th and 14th centuries, church law gradually limited both the use of the Requiem and the number of chants appropriate to its celebration. The content was limited further by the Council of Trent (1545–63). The absence of indices of graduals from about 1600 to about 1880 renders it impossible to describe the extent of the repertory for the Requiem during this period. The normative formulary of about 1880 to about 1970 included the introit Requiem aeternam; a very simple, repetitive 6th-mode Kyrie; the gradual Requiem aeternam; tract Absolve Domine; sequence Dies irae; offertory Domine Jesu Christe; nearly syllabic settings of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei; the communion Lux aeterna; and Requiescant in pace. The responsory Libera me may follow the completion of the Requiem Mass. The Dominican order allowed for the use of the gradual Si ambulem and the tract Sicut cervus for specific circumstances and used an 8th-mode Kyrie, also of very restricted range. (The Cistercians and Carthusians also permitted limited alternatives.) Following the revisions of the 1970 Roman Missal, the 1974 Graduale Sacrosanctae Romanae Ecclesiae provided for considerable flexibility of choice. Alternative chants were selected for practical reasons from the current chant repertory. Thus only two of the seven introits sanctioned, three of the six graduals, none of the five alleluias, all four tracts, three of the seven offertories and two of the ten communions belong to the corpus of medieval chants associated with the Requiem. None of the chants allotted to Paschal time belongs to the medieval corpus. There is in addition a Requiem formulary for Baptized Children, with two alternatives for Paschal time; of the seven chants included, only the introit Ego autem cum iustitia apparebo was used in this function during the Middle Ages.

Among the surviving Old Roman sources, I-Rvat lat.5319 has a formulary for the Requiem. (Most of these chants are given also in Rvat S. Pietro F.11, which presents a second formulary for the third, seventh and 30th days.) Rvat lat.5319 uses the introit Rogamus te; the gradual Qui Lazarum; the tract De profundis; a choice of offertories, Domine convertere or Domine Jesu Christe; and a choice of communions, Lux aeterna (two settings), Christus qui natus est or Pro quorum memoria. No information is provided about the Ordinary chants. Unlike its Gregorian counterpart, a 7th-mode melody found in Italian and French sources, the Roman Rogamus te is a 3rd-mode melody closely similar to several others of this mode. Qui Lazarum is a member of the branch of the mode 2 graduals (notated at the upper 5th) that includes Ab occultis and Exsultabunt sancti; its Gregorian counterpart, also found in Italian and French sources, is a mode 1 melody of markedly different construction. The tract, an 8th-mode melody borrowed from Septuagesima Sunday, is related to its Gregorian counterpart. Domine convertere is another borrowed chant, used in fuller form (with verses) in both the Old Roman and Gregorian repertories on Feria II following the fifth Sunday in Lent. It and its Gregorian counterpart are in mode 6. Despite minor textual differences, the well-known Domine Jesu Christe is basically the same in both the Gregorian and Roman transmission. The setting of Lux aeterna in mode 8 is a slightly more florid version of the normative Gregorian melody, but the alternative version is unrelated to the Gregorian alternative with a much longer text, found only in four Spanish and French sources. The Roman melody ends on c' and may be regarded as a transposed version of either a mode 6 or a mode 8 melody; it is quite individual within the Roman repertory itself.

The Ambrosian ingressa Requiem aeternam is strikingly similar to its Gregorian counterpart. The customary psalmellus (the equivalent of the gradual) Qui suscitasti Lazarus is a fairly simple melody with a respond in parallel halves. De profundis, an alternative commemorating one or more priests, is somewhat more elaborate. The cantus Domine exaudi orationem nostram is borrowed from the formulary of Feria V following the First Sunday of Quadragesima; it is briefer (the entire text has been given here) and less florid than many others of its genre. The post Evangelium Requiem sanctam is very nearly syllabic, with a range of a fourth. Depending upon occasion there is a choice of two offertories, Libera me or Domine Jesu Christe. Each has a verse in its modern form and is in mode 2. Domine Jesu Christe corresponds closely to its Gregorian counterpart. The confractorium Audivi vocem is brief and nearly syllabic, with the range of a 5th. The transitorium Agnus Dei is simpler still, consisting of little more than a recitation. The alternative, Ego sum resurrectio, on the other hand, is reasonably varied.

Requiem Mass

2. Polyphonic settings to 1600.

Of the principal liturgical destinations, that of the Mass for the Dead appears to have been the last to resist the incorporation of composed polyphony, possibly because the burial service was deemed too solemn an occasion to warrant festal trappings (although there are indications that improvised polyphony may have been tolerated). Whatever the reason, the tradition of polyphonic requiem mass settings seems not to predate the second half of the 15th century. Isolated requiem mass movements survive, but the first extant cycle, by Ockeghem, dates from after 1450 and is probably incomplete in its sole surviving source (the Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Communion are missing). Liturgically, the choice of movements set to polyphony might be compared to a pared-down plenary mass cycle; insofar as the heterogeneous stylistic profile of the earliest requiem settings resembles that of the few plenary mass cycles that survive (most notably Du Fay's Missa S Jacobi), it is possible that the one tradition grew out of the other, in which case the lost setting by Du Fay may possibly have preceded Ockeghem's. Du Fay's work is described in a copying record of 1470–71 as ‘de novo compilata’, a phrase best translated as ‘newly revised’ or ‘composed anew’; hence, it may have originated some time earlier. In any case, the question of precedence cannot be definitely settled. The next extant settings are thought to be those by Brumel, La Rue and Prioris; the last two in particular show signs of having been modelled on Ockeghem's work which, in turn, may have taken Du Fay's setting as its model.

In the first two decades of the 16th century, polyphonic requiem settings became increasingly common. Early settings include those by Richafort, Antoine de Févin (also ascribed to Divitis), Engarandus Juvenis and Escobar. The Requiem ascribed to Basurto is a composite work, incorporating movements from the settings by Ockeghem and Brumel; but it is unclear precisely which movements (if any) originate with Basurto himself.

These earliest requiem settings are remarkable for their extreme textural variety, and for a tendency to juxtapose music of the utmost simplicity with passages of considerable contrapuntal sophistication (the offertories of Ockeghem and La Rue being fine examples of the latter). As the 16th century progressed, sobriety gained the upper hand, a trend compensated in some cases by an increased propensity to rich scoring (Richafort's setting is for six voices). Further, the genre remained a haven for tenor cantus firmi and plainchant paraphrase, which were losing ground to parody technique in the domain of the Mass Ordinary. These are indications of an abiding conservatism, perhaps a survival of the apparent reluctance to admit polyphony into the Office for the Dead a few decades earlier. Indeed, Richafort's setting appears to stand alone in its incorporation of secular materials: its use of canon (itself exceptional) was probably inspired by Josquin's Nymphes nappés, which is quoted in several places; and the setting of Faulte d'argent attributed to Josquin is quoted at the words ‘c’est douleur non pareille’ alongside the plainchant Circumdederunt me.

From the earliest requiem settings onwards there is a marked absence of standardization as to which movements were set polyphonically. The movements surviving in any given source are not necessarily a reliable guide, since scribes may have copied only those movements appropriate to local practice. Only three integrated, alternatim settings of the sequence Dies irae are known to predate the second half of the 16th century. Interestingly, they all survive in Italian sources: Brumel's is incomplete, that by Engarandus Juvenis sets only the first stanzas and Morales's setting (printed in Rome in 1544) set only the last words. Lassus's two settings, printed in 1578 and 1580 and presumably composed for the same establishment, do not set the same movements. Moreover, the Bavarian Court did not accept the 1570 Missal imposed by the Council of Trent until 1581; the changes of movements cannot be attributed to the adoption of the Tridentine Use. Another interesting case is that of Guerrero, whose two versions (printed in 1566 and 1582 respectively) date from before and after the Tridentine reforms: the second version entailed the revision of some movements and the substitution of entirely new music for others.

This pre-Tridentine diversity extends to the texts appropriate to the gradual (Si ambulem or Requiem aeternam) and the tract, as well as encompassing minor variants for the offertory Domine Jesu Christe (e.g. ‘de poenis inferni’ or ‘de manu inferni’). A bigger variant is ‘ne cadant in obscurum’ (Roman and Tridentine Use, 1570), which also appears as ‘ne cadant in obscura tenebrarum loca’ (Ockeghem's setting has ‘obscura tenebrarum’ in its only source). This variety extends to plainchants as well as texts. However, generalizations concerning the location of such variants along broad geo-political lines are problematic. Chantbooks reflect a multitude of local variants from one diocese to the next. Furthermore, specific polyphonic settings could be sung irrespective of whether the borrowed chant coincided with that in local use. Even in the post-Tridentine period, the relationship between texts and their corresponding chants was quite flexible: in Spain, for example, certain dioceses preferred to adapt their old chants to the new texts set out by the Council, rather than to discard them altogether.

The polyphonic requiem flourished with a particular intensity on the Iberian peninsula. The first extant Iberian setting, by Pedro Escobar, existed by about 1520. Vásquez's setting (published in 1556) is remarkable for being part of a complete Agenda defunctorum that included Matins and Lauds in addition to the more usual Vespers and Mass. In the first publication, the original Sevillan chants appear alongside their polyphonic elaborations. It was in Spain and Portugal that the tradition of stile antico requiem settings had the greatest longevity, its ramifications extending well into the next century (as with Victoria's setting), and, through the colonial possessions of both countries, into new continents as well.

Requiem Mass

3. 1600 to 1900.

Early in the 17th century the Renaissance polyphonic style, in various modified forms, served for several decades as a principal medium for requiem composition. A fine example, in Palestrinian style, is G.F. Anerio's setting (published in 1614, and reprinted three times up to 1677), the introit of which reveals an elegant use of chant paraphrase. Similar in approach, but with more archaic cantus firmus treatment, are the expressive settings of two of Victoria's successors, Duarte Lobo (Officium defunctorum, 1603) and J.P. Pujol (requiem for four voices, before 1626). An important innovation, evident in a number of works, is the inclusion of an organ continuo part (with figured or unfigured bass), which allowed greater variations in texture and dynamics. Early examples include Aichinger's requiem (1615; D-As) and settings, from 1619, by Antonio Brunelli and Jean de Bournonville. In France, finely moulded part-writing, close in style to that of Lassus, is found in requiem settings by Eustache Du Caurroy (1606, ed. in Le pupitre, lxv, 1983) and Etienne Moulinié (1636, ed. D. Launay, Paris, 1952). Du Caurroy's work, which omits the sequence but includes settings of the gradual and its psalm verse (Psalm xxii.4), was sung at the funeral of Henri IV in 1610, and adopted thereafter for the obsequies of all French kings until 1774.

Documentary evidence only has survived for what was possibly the earliest use of a truly moderno style. In an account of a requiem performed in Venice in 1621 at a memorial service for the late Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de’ Medici, Giulio Strozzi refers to music (now lost) by Monteverdi and his colleagues G.B. Grillo and Francesco Usper, including solo vocal items and an instrumental sinfonia at the start of the ceremonies and recurring during the introit (D. de’ Paoli, Claudio Monteverdi, Milan, 1945, p.241).

Later in the 17th century numerous requiem settings, many in concertato style, were produced by composers including G.B. Bassani, G.A. Bernabei, Antonio Bertali (eight settings), Biber, Giovanni Cavaccio, Cavalli, Cazzati, Joan Cererols, G.P. Colonna, P.A. Fiocco (three settings), Santino Girelli, J.K. Heller, J.C. Kerll (two settings), A.V. Michna, Marcin Mielczewski, Alessandro Scarlatti, Johann Stadlmayer, Christoph Straus (two settings) and Viadana.

Christoph Straus's requiem of 1631 (ed. in DTÖ, lix, Jg.xxx/1, 1923/R) is scored for two choruses, one high and one low, with voices and instruments (strings) combined. Little distinction is made between vocal and instrumental idioms, but some variety of scoring is indicated by ‘ta[cent]' and ‘son[ant]’ markings in the string parts. Text illustration includes vocal trilli for ‘Quantus tremor est futurus’; and an optional Symphonia ad imitatione campanae, with tolling bell patterns in the bass supporting overlapping figuration above, provides a suitably sombre opening.

Further developments are seen in two other settings from the Austrian courts, Kerll’s Missa pro defunctis (1689; D-Mbs) and Biber's requiem (F minor, c1690; both ed. in DTÖ, lix, Jg.xxx/1, 1923/R). In Kerll's multi-sectional sequence, solo vocal settings are provided for several of the central verses; and effective word-painting is achieved by means of string tremolandos for the ‘Quantus tremor’ section and fanfare-like arpeggios, vocal and instrumental, for ‘Tuba mirum’. Biber wrote more idiomatically for both strings and solo voices, the latter most notably in a florid bass solo at the start of the offertory. Syllabic quavers are used for rapid absorption of the lengthy sequence text; but there are also moments of repose, such as the fine passage, for chorus, with violin decorations, from the ‘Lacrimosa’ to the end.

Many requiem settings of the period were the result of a wish or obligation to commemorate the high-born deceased of the courts and capitals of southern Europe, and can thus be dated with reasonable confidence. Following Kerll's requiem of 1689, which marked the death of the Emperor Leopold I, there are those of Jommelli (1756, for the Duchess of Württemberg), J.G. Schürer (1757, for the Electress Maria Josepha of Saxony), J.A. Hasse (1763, for the Elector August of Saxony), Jean Gilles (performed for Rameau in 1764 and for Louis XV in 1774, superseding the traditional royal setting by Du Caurroy), C.A. Campioni (1766, for the Emperor Franz I, and 1781, for the Empress Maria Theresa), Michael Haydn (1771, for Sigismund von Schrattenbach, Archbishop of Salzburg), and Salvador Pazzaglia (1781, also for the Empress Maria Theresa). Memorial works of a similar nature were produced also in Protestant areas, most importantly the Musikalische Exequien (swv279–81, 1636) of Heinrich Schütz. The work's dedicatee, Prince Heinrich Posthumus of Reuss, following a not unusual practice, chose the chorale and biblical texts on which it is based and had them inscribed on his coffin.

The Messe des morts by Jean Gilles (c1700, ed. in RRMBE, xlvii, 1984), gained widespread admiration in 18th-century France for its lively character. The vocal soloists and orchestra predominate, often with dance-like music, while the chorus contributes climactic endings to each main section in a largely homophonic style. At Rameau's funeral on 27 September 1764 the requiem is said to have been ‘interlarded with passages from Castor and Pollux and other operas’ by the deceased composer; and at the Concert Spirituel towards the end of the century to have been embellished by ‘a carillon added at the end … by Michel Corrette’.

From the late 17th century onwards, mainly through the contributions of leading opera composers such as Feo, Galuppi, Hasse, Pergolesi, Jommelli, Gassmann, Cimarosa and Gossec, individual movements of the requiem became gradually larger, the orchestration richer and the solo vocal writing more elaborate. In some cases, single texts, usually the sequence and the responsory, were set separately, either as independent motets or as a means of providing vivid contrast within chanted forms of the funeral service. Examples include an impressive Dies irae for soloists, double chorus and orchestra by Lully (1684, ed. H. Prunières, Les Motets, ii, Paris, 1935); and one with similar scoring by J.C. Bach (1757, I-Bc; ed. J. Bastian, Mainz, 1972).

A mixture of styles, not unusual for the period, is evident in Jommelli's requiem in E (1756, A-LA; vocal score ed. J. Stern, Leipzig, 1866). Operatic solos (for soprano in the Benedictus, and for bass, with ‘heroic’ descending octaves, in the ‘Tuba mirum’) are juxtaposed, somewhat uneasily, with stretches of pedestrian church counterpoint, one of them a double fugue for the ‘Pie Jesu’ which compares strangely with later songlike settings of that text. Less polished, but more committed emotionally, is the requiem in C minor by Georg Reutter (ii) (1753; A-GÖ, ed. in DTÖ, lxxxviii, 1952). Not primarily an opera composer, he is most effective in majestic choral passages such as the opening of the Sanctus. In the sequence (and sporadically elsewhere) the idea of ‘judgment’ is portrayed by clarino fanfares, and the ‘Tuba mirum’ is set as a reflective alto solo with an imitative countermelody (in an interesting anticipation of Mozart's setting) for solo trombone.

Preceding Mozart's Requiem more immediately, and possibly influential upon it, are the settings by Michael Haydn (1771; D-Bsb) and F.L. Gassmann (1774; introit and Kyrie only; ed. in DTÖ, lxxxiii, Jg.xlv, 1938), both of them links in a continuing Viennese tradition. One of the most striking features of Haydn's setting is the use in the ‘Te decet hymnus’ of a theme based on the appropriate plainchant melody; Mozart, in contrast, used the tonus peregrinus associated with Psalm cxiii. Another ‘predecessor’ work, in the French tradition, which points beyond Mozart to the early 19th century, is Gossec's Requiem (1760), in which the ‘Tuba mirum’ is startlingly portrayed by two orchestras, one, comprising 23 woodwind and brass instruments, concealed aloft in the church, and the other, of strings, playing pianissimo and tremolando outside the building.

Despite the complexity of its origins – its composition during the composer's final days and completion after his death by F.X. Süssmayr (with some input from J.L. Eybler and, possibly, F.J. Freystädtler) – Mozart's Requiem is the most important example from the 18th century. The exact extent of Mozart's contribution is still debated; but such stylistic unevenness as may have resulted from additions by others has hardly lessened the impact of the work as a whole. After Mozart's death in 1791, a memorial requiem for him (now lost) by Antonio Rosetti was performed in Prague; and in 1803, Eybler himself composed a grand Requiem in C minor (A-Wn 16.591), regarded generally as his most important work.

Further contributors during the 18th century include Albrechtsberger, Ignaz von Beecke, Giuseppe Bonno, Franz Bühler, Campra, Francesco Durante, Nicola Fago, J.F. Fasch, Fux (three settings), Pietro Gnocchi (six settings), J.D. Heinichen, J.A. Kobrich (six settings), Marianus Königsperger (four settings), Leopold Kozeluch, G.B. Martini, Giuseppe Moneta, Leopold Mozart, Paisiello, Perti, Antoine Reicha, G.J. Vogler and Peter Winter (for the funeral of the Emperor Joseph II in 1790).

The two most important and still frequently performed requiem settings from the 19th century, Berlioz's Grande messe des morts (1837) and Verdi's Messa da Requiem (1874, in memory of Alessandro Manzoni), clearly overstep liturgical bounds, Berlioz's by the grand scale of its forces, Verdi's by its rearrangement of the text. In both works the sequence (no doubt more with theatrical than with theological intent) provides a memento mori of chilling intensity; solace is also evident in keenly felt music for the more meditative texts, notably the Sanctus in Berlioz's and the Agnus Dei in Verdi's.

In 1816 the Brazilian composer José Maurício Garcia completed his imposing fourth (and last) requiem; it is widely regarded as his finest work. In the following year, in France, two requiem settings were commissioned to mark the annual commemoration of Louis XVI's execution: Cherubini's Requiem in C minor, and a monumental setting by N.C. Bochsa, including wind band and percussion, and designed for an open-air reinterment ceremony. Cherubini's impressive work makes few concessions in the way of melodic charm or theatrical effect. Word-illustration is confined mainly to the offertory, where ‘the pains of hell’ and ‘the deep lake’ provoke shuddering demisemiquaver patterns on the orchestra, and ‘the fall into darkness’ is portrayed most movingly by broken phrases on male voices and strings descending to a solitary A in the bass. His equally fine, though more simple, Requiem in D minor, scored for male chorus and orchestra, is a purely liturgical work, intended for, and used at, his own funeral in 1842. Similar settings for male voices include one by Liszt, dated 1867–8, in which soloists and chorus are accompanied by organ and optional brass.

Bruckner's Requiem (1848–9) reveals, in its busy string figuration against slower-moving choral writing, persistent metrical patterns and organ figured bass, the influence of the Viennese masses of the late 18th century. Its modest length and faithful adherence to the Latin text make it entirely suitable for liturgical use. After the mid-century, however, many important settings, including those of Schumann (1851), Moniuszko (1862), Saint-Saëns (1878) and Dvořák (1891), were conceived more in terms of the concert hall, inclining, by their grand scale and, in some cases, textual liberties, towards the oratorio, the most favoured sacred genre of the 19th century. Dvořák's setting, with a duration of some 95 minutes, is one of the longest of the period, and requires numerous text repetitions and short orchestral interventions to fill its symphonic ‘canvas’. Structural unity is enhanced by the use of a motto theme (drawn from the first notes of the plainchant introit), heard at the opening and recalled in several later movements.

Brahms's non-liturgical German Requiem (1857–68) is unified by the close relationship between its musical concept and its text, which the composer himself compiled from the Lutheran Bible. A source of inspiration may well have been the funeral music by Schütz, a composer Brahms is known to have admired, though, as his contemporaries remarked, his textual mosaic lacks the specifically Christian dimension of the earlier work. French contributions to the genre from the later part of the century include settings by L.T. Gouvy (c1880) and Alfred Bruneau (1896), both large-scale and technically accomplished, but insufficiently characterful to have survived in the repertory. In Bruneau's work, trumpets situated on either side of the auditorium present the Dies irae plainchant in alternate notes, as a curious type of instrumental hocket. Altogether more refined in style, Fauré's Requiem bears imprints of the composer's early training in plainchant and 16th-century polyphony. Originally the work had five movements only – Introit and Kyrie, Sanctus, Pie Jesu (for treble soloist), Agnus Dei and In Paradisum – with an orchestra of lower strings, harp, timpani and organ, and a solo violin in the Sanctus. In this form it was performed at a funeral in Ste Marie-Madeleine, Paris, in January 1888. Thereafter, in two stages up to 1900, it was augmented by the addition of an offertory and responsory, both with a baritone soloist, and an enlargement of the orchestra to include woodwind, brass and a full complement of strings.

Other notable requiem settings of the 19th century (with their dedicatees where known) include those by J.C. Aiblinger, J.D. Bomtempo (1819, ‘in memoriam Luis de Camões’) J.B. van Bree, Alfredo Catalani, Carlo Coccia, Donizetti (1835, for Bellini, and 1837, for Zingarelli), F.-J. Fétis (1850, for the Queen of Belgium), Friedrich Kiel, Mascagni (1900, for Umberto I), Neukomm, Giovanni Pacini, Carl Reinecke, Reissiger, Rheinberger and Sgambati (1896, also for Umberto I).

Requiem Mass

4. After 1900.

Requiem settings from the 20th century are remarkable for their range and variety. Those that continue the ‘symphonic’ manner of the previous century include the settings by Maliszewski (1930), G.F. Malipiero (1938), Guido Guerrini (Missa pro defunctis ‘alla memoria di G. Marconi’, 1938–9), Sutermeister (1952), Virgil Thomson (1960) and Frank Martin (1971–2); others are of a specifically national or racial orientation, such as the Requiem (1963) by Wilfrid Josephs, a setting of the Hebrew Kaddish Prayer for the Dead, and Penderecki’s Polish Requiem (1980–84).

Conceived within the bounds of liturgical worship are a number of a cappella requiem settings, which display a simplicity and sobriety that recall the aims of the 19th-century Cecilian movement. Principal among these are those of Pizzetti (1922–3), Georges Migot (1953), Priaulx Rainier (1955), Randall Thompson (1958) and Iain Hamilton (1979). Similarly restrained is the highly successful Requiem (1947, rev.1961) by Duruflé, dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father. It derives grace and suppleness from its modal harmony and the plainchant melodies used in many of its movements, and shares several features of style and scoring with Fauré’s Requiem.

Further dedications are found in Kabalevsky’s Symphony no.3 in B minor (1933), described as a ‘Requiem with chorus for Lenin’, Hanns Eisler’s Lenin-Requiem (1970), Cesar Bresgen’s Requiem für Anton Webern (1945–72) and a Requiem à memória de Petro de Freitas Branco (1964) by Joly Braga Santos. Among the settings commemorating the dead of the two world wars are John Foulds’s World Requiem (1919–21) and Britten’s War Requiem (1961), the latter providing graphic comment on the tragic futility of war by its juxtaposition of war poems by Wilfred Owen with Missa pro defunctis texts.

Some 20th-century settings treat the text in a fragmented or discontinuous manner and make use of extended vocal and instrumental techniques. Ligeti’s Requiem consists of just four sections, ‘Introitus’, ‘Kyrie’, ‘De Judicii Sequentia’ and ‘Lacrimosa’: the third of these features violently disjunct vocal lines, with words and syllables split between different voice-parts. In the Kyrie, on the other hand, what Ligeti calls ‘micropolyphony’, fast-moving canonic patterns in the voices, is set against a slow-moving chromatic orchestral background. In Stravinsky’s Requiem Canticles (1965–6), another partial setting of the liturgy, the words of the ‘Libera me’ are sung by a quartet of soloists and, at the same time, spoken by the chorus in a rapid, rhythmically free parlando. Geoffrey Burgon’s Requiem (1976), which introduces 16th-century texts by St John of the Cross to comment on the Latin liturgy (the Kyrie and Sanctus are omitted), makes use, like Ligeti’s, of ‘splintered’ text-setting, as well as chorus whispering and, for its mysterious ending, the ‘silent’ blowing of air through the brass instruments.

Among works that exist on the fringe of the genre are John Tavener’s Celtic Requiem (1969), which links liturgy, Irish poetry and children’s games in a manner suitable for stage performance. Others stretch the genre’s boundaries away from the text altogether. Koechlin’s incomplete Requiem des pauvres bougres (1937) uses only the words ‘Requiem aeternam, dona eis requiem’ as the basis of three short choral invocations, alternating with instrumental sections for piano or organ and orchestra. Henze’s Requiem (1990–92), on the other hand, dispenses completely with voices. With the exception of the third, ‘Ave verum corpus’, each of its concertante movements, for trumpet or piano solo with large chamber orchestra, bears the title of a section of the Requiem Mass. Though its message is humanist and political rather than religious (the ‘Dies irae’ and ‘Rex tremendae’ movements were provoked by events of the 1991 Gulf War) it shares with liturgical settings a preoccupation with, as Henze puts its, ‘the human fears and needs of our time, with illness and death, love and loneliness’.

Requiem Mass

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MGG1 (A. Seay)

ReeseMMA

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J.A. Jungmann: Missarum sollemnia: eine genetische Erklärung der römischen Messe (Vienna,1948, 5/1962; Eng. trans. 1951–5/R as The Mass of the Roman Rite)

M.F. Bukofzer: Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (New York, 1950)

R. Hesbert: ‘Les pièces de chant des messes “Pro Defunctis” dans la tradition manuscrite’, Congresso internazionale di musica sacra [I]: Rome 1950, 223–8

K.G. Fellerer: Die Messe: ihre musikalische Gestalt vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Dortmund, 1951)

R.J. Schaffer: A Comparative Study of Seven Polyphonic Requiem Masses (diss., New York U.,1952) [incl. transcr. of requiem by Du Caurroy]

S. Barwick: ‘Puebla's Requiem Choirbook’, Essays on Music in Honor of Archibald Thompson Davison (Cambridge, MA, 1957), 121–7

C. Gay: ‘Formulaires anciens pour la Messe des défunts’, EG, ii (1957), 83–129

H.T. Luce: The Requiem Mass from its Plainsong Beginnings to 1600 (diss., Florida State U., 1958) [incl. transcrs. of requiems by Brumel, Prioris, Sermisy, Clereau, Certon, Vaet, Guerrero, Asola, Lassus and Belli]

F. Blume: ‘Requiem but no Peace’, MQ, xlvii (1961), 147–69 [on Mozart's Requiem]

J. Bruyr: ‘Les grands requiems et leur message’, Journal musical français, no.116 (1963), 4

S. Günther: ‘Das säkularisierte Requiem’, Musica, xviii (1964), 185–90

F. Sopeña Ibañez: El réquiem en la música romántica (Madrid, 1965)

E.A. Wienandt: Choral Music of the Church (New York, 1965/R)

M.N. Schnoebelen: The Concerted Mass at San Petronio in Bologna, ca. 1660–1730: a Documentary and Analytical Study (diss., U. of Illinois, 1966)

A. Cornides: ‘Requiem Mass, Liturgy of’, New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967)

A. Robertson: Requiem: Music of Mourning and Consolation (London, 1967/R)

R. Snow: ‘Requiem Mass, Music of’, New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967)

D. Rosen: ‘La Messa a Rossini e il Requiem per Manzoni’, RIM, iv (1969), 127–37; v (1970), 216–33

M. Landwehr-Melnicki, ed.: Die Gesänge des altrömischen Graduale Vat., lat., 5319, MMMA, ii (1970)

S. Girard: ‘Algunas fuentes de musica de requiem en el nuevo mundo’, Heterofonía, no.17 (1971), 10–13 [Eng. abstract, 42–3]

R. Münster and R.Machold: Thematischer Katalog der Musikhandschriften der ehemaligen Klosterkirchen Weyarn, Tegernsee und Benediktbeuern (Munich,1971) [lists 35 requiems]

A.J. Maitland: The Development of Form and Style in 18th-Century Salzburg Church Music (diss., U. of Aberdeen, 1972)

S. Girard: The Requiem Mass and Music for the Dead in Venezuela (diss., UCLA, 1975)

E. Russell: ‘A New Manuscript Source for the Music of Cristobal de Morales: Morales’ “Lost” Missa pro defunctis and the Early Spanish Requiem Traditions’, AnM, xxxiii–xxxv (1978–80), 12–14

E. Russell: ‘The Missa in agendis mortuorum of Juan Garcia de Basurto: Johannes Ockeghem, Antoine Brumel, and an Early Spanish Requiem Mass’, TVNM, xxix (1979), 1–37

R. Wexler: ‘Which Franco-Netherlander Composed the First Polyphonic Requiem Mass?’, Papers from the First Interdisciplinary Conference on Netherlandic Studies: College Park, MD, 1982, 171–6

W. Prizer: ‘Music and Ceremonial in the Low Countries: Philip the Fair and the Order of the Golden Fleece’, EMH, v (1985), 113–53

B.C. MacIntyre: The Viennese Concerted Mass of the Early Classic Period (Ann Arbor, 1986)

W. Horn: Die Dresdner Hofkirchenmusik 1720–1745: Studien zu ihren Voraussetzungen und ihrem Repertoire (Stuttgart, 1987) [discusses A. Scarlatti, Durante, Fux, Reutter (ii) and Fasch]

R. Maunder: Mozart's Requiem: Geschichte, Musik, Dokumente, Partitur des Fragments (Munich, 1991; Eng. trans., 1994)

G.G. Wagstaff: Music for the Dead: Polyphonic Settings of the ‘Officium’ and ‘Missa pro defunctis’ by Spanish and Latin American Composers before 1630 (diss., U. of Texas, 1995)

F. Fitch: Johannes Ockeghem: Masses and Models (Paris, 1997), 26–30, 195–230