Requiem æternam dona eis

There is a long and powerful tradition of settings of the Catholic Requiem Mass to music. Originally masses in remembrance of the dead used only plainchant as polyphony was not considered serious enough. Here is the beginning of the Introit in Gregorian notation:

The first composers to write polyphonic settings of the text were Guillaume DuFay and Johannes Ockeghem but sadly, Ockeghem's is the only one to survive. Here is the Introit:

There are over 2000 settings of the Requiem, some intended for use within a liturgical setting, others as concert music. Here is a rather passionate a capella setting by Tomás Luis de Victoria dating from 1603:

One of the most famous settings of all is that of Mozart, unfinished as he lay on his deathbed in 1791:

As you can hear, by this time the settings were usually for vocal soloists, choir and full orchestra.

One of the most grandiose and powerful settings is that of Hector Berlioz in 1837 which he titled Grande Messe des Morts. Apart from the usual forces mentioned above, the instrumentation includes four brass bands placed in four corners of the hall and ten, TEN, tympani players with a lot of other percussion as well. I have had the experience of hearing a live performance and there are moments when you are almost sure that the actual Apocalypse itself could not be nearly so impressive! Here is a very grand performance conducted by Colin Davis. The actual performance starts at the 13 minute mark:

You can see where Mahler got some of his ideas. Now, of course, composers outside the Catholic tradition also did similar kinds of settings. In the case of Brahm's German Requiem of 1868 he uses texts, in German, from the Lutheran Bible:

This was followed in 1874 by Verdi's setting of the traditional Catholic text:

Wikipedia has an astonishingly touching story of performances of this piece in WWII:

The Requiem was performed 16 times between 1943 and 1944 by prisoners in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt (also known as Terezín) under the direction of Rafael Schächter. The performances were extraordinary on several counts: first, they had only a single vocal score with piano accompaniment, so every part had to be learned from memory; second, they practised in a dark, cold, damp basement with only a broken piano after long days of forced labour; and third, as the performances took place over an extended period, many of the singers were removed by the Nazis and had to be replaced. The final performance particularly provided a basis for dignified self-expression as well as attempting to symbolically communicate the circumstances at the camp to a visiting International Red Cross delegation in 1944.

Theresienstadt was the concentration camp where the Nazis sent children and artists, including musicians. A very dear friend of mine, violinist Paul Kling, was sent there as a child and later moved to Auschwitz. Unlike many, he survived...

Another requiem, perhaps the most elegant and charming, is by Gabriel Fauré, composed in 1890:

The 20th century saw some unconventional settings such as that by Benjamin Britten in 1962 called the War Requiem.  In addition to the traditional text, the setting includes nine poems by the war poet Wilfred Owen. Here is a performance conducted by John Eliot Gardiner:

In 1966 Igor Stravinsky made a brief, partial setting of the text titled Requiem Canticles. The piece, in nine short movements, uses serial technique:

Unless Philip Glass starts writing requiems, we may have come to the end of this history, with one final mention. In the 1980s, in support of the movements for Polish independence,  Krzysztof Penderecki made a setting called Polish Requiem. The text is from the traditional liturgy with some additions. There is not a clip on YouTube with the whole piece, but here is the beginning to give you a sense of it:

This five hundred year tradition may have come to an end, but, like the symphony, it may not be over yet.

UPDATE: In a comment on another post, commentator Nathaniel Garbutt recommends filling in the gap in my discussion of the requiem between the late Renaissance and Classical eras with requiems by Charpentier and Biber. He particularly recommends a Biber requiem composed in 1692. Turns out there are two Biber requiems, one in F minor and one in A major. Here are excerpts from both:

Both fine works! Thanks, Nathaniel. Makes me think that Heinrich Biber, who was employed by the Archbishop of Salzburg (who later employed Mozart) for the latter half of his career, really deserves more attention. Perhaps I will do a post on him. A friend of mine did her doctoral dissertation on him.

Mozart's Requiem

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11 I posted a performance of the first part of the Requiem by Mozart. This was his last composition and was incomplete at his death. There is much controversy over the piece because it had to be completed by Mozart's student  Franz Xaver Süssmayr. For a discussion of all this, read the article in Wikipedia.


Here are the first few bars of the Lacrimosa in Mozart's autograph:

Click to enlarge

A comment to my post mentioned the ascending scale in the Lacrimosa. This is a classic example of a terrific use of both an ascending and descending chromatic scale together. Here it is from a harmony text with first, a condensed version to show the harmony and then as it appears in the Lacrimosa:

Click to enlarge

For those of you who are harmony geeks like myself, I'll just sort out what he is doing here. First, going through the condensed version. The key is D minor and the first chord is the tonic, D minor. Then a chord that is a dominant 7th in last inversion of the subdominant. Then the subdominant--in major. The next chord is the very fancy German augmented 6th chord which leads to the dominant with a 6/4 suspension.

Now let me explain what I just said! There are three important chords in every key. I say "three important" even though there are actually seven possible chords in every key and each one may be presented in different ways. You can also add extra notes like 7ths to each chord. But the other chords are related to the three important ones. Basically it boils down to the chord of rest and resolution, the tonic, the chord of tension, the dominant and chords that precede or prepare the dominant, often to add even more tension. The basic progression in the reduction above is tonic, subdominant, dominant.

Believe it or not, this is the same chord progression as the one in "Twist and Shout": tonic, subdominant, dominant, or D, G, A. The difference is that here we are in D minor instead of D major. Another difference is that the subdominant and dominant, the G and A chords, are each preceded by a chord that sets them up. The subdominant is preceded by its dominant--a neat trick that composers have been using for a long time, and the dominant is preceded by that fancy augmented 6th chord. The augmented 6th is fancy because it moves to the dominant with extreme tension. It has a leading tone up to the 5th of the dominant and a leading tone down to the root of the dominant. What is very neat about it is that its origins are really very old--it goes back to the Phrygian cadence of modal harmony. To boil it down a bit, these extra chords that are added to the simple tonic, subdominant, dominant progression come about through voice-leading. The old principles that the monks discovered when they were inventing counterpoint a thousand years ago, are still being used.

Now let's hear this music. First, "Twist and Shout":

Three chords all the way through... Then Mozart:

The passage I have been talking about is from the 25 second to the 50 second mark.

Amazing how pieces of music as utterly different as these two turn out to have similar roots!