In the Roman Catholic Church, a Mass for the dead. In addition to its liturgical use, it has become a musical form, of which there are many outstanding examples, eg requiems by Mozart, Fauré, and Britten.
The Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known formally (in Latin) as the Missa pro defunctis or Missa defunctorum, is a liturgical service of the Roman Catholic Church and, in a wholly different ritual form, the Eastern Rite Catholic Churches.
"Requiem" is also the title of various musical compositions used in such liturgical services or as concert pieces as settings of the portions of that mass which have been traditionally sung in the Roman Catholic liturgy. (A version of the complete liturgy for the Requiem can be found at .)
While the prayers in the regular Mass as the Introit and Gradual change according to the Calendar of Saints, the text for the requiem mass is particularly fixed. Eventually the dramatic character began to appeal to composers to an extent that made the requiem a genre of its own.
The Roman Catholic Liturgy
This use of the word requiem comes from the opening words of the Introit: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. (Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.) The requiem mass differs from the ordinary mass in omitting certain joyful passages such as the Gloria, Credo, and Alleluia, and by the addition of the sequence Dies Iræ.
The regular texts of the musical portions to be found in the Roman Catholic liturgy, laid down at the Tridentine Council, are the following:
Introit: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. (“Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. He shall be justified in everlasting memory, and shall not fear evil reports.”) Tract: Absolve, Domine, animas omnium fidelium defunctorum ab omno vinculo delictorum et gratia tua illis succurente mereantur evadere judicium ultionis, et lucis æterne beatitudine perfrui. (“Forgive, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from all the chains of their sins and may they deserve to avoid the judgment of revenge by your fostering grace, and enjoy the everlasting blessedness of light.”) Sequence: Dies iræ, dies illa (See Dies Iræ for full text) Offertory: Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriæ, libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni et de profundo lacu. Hosanna in excelsis. (reprise) Agnus Dei, text as the Agnus Dei in the Ordinary of the Mass, but with the petitions miserere nobis changed to dona eis requiem, and dona nobis pacem to dona eis requiem sempiternam: Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem,Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam. (“Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, grant them rest, … grant them rest eternal.”). Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine; Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and may everlasting light shine upon them.”)
As with penitential seasons for the regular mass, the Gloria (from the Ordinary) and Alleluia (from the Proper) are omitted in the Requiem as well, as these are viewed as being overly joyful texts (the Alleluia being replaced by the Tract). Likewise, the Credo (sometimes omitted from the Ordinary of the Mass) is not used in the Requiem. The Dies irae was rendered optional in the Requiem in 1967 and was omitted from the revised Mass altogether in 1969;
Musical compositions
For many centuries the texts of the requiem were sung to Gregorian melodies. his requiem is believed to predate a lost setting by the elder composer Dufay. Many early requiems employ different texts that were in use in different liturgies around Europe before the Council of Trent set down the texts given above. The requiem of Brumel, circa 1500, is the first to include the Dies Iræ.
Over 2000 requiems have been composed to the present day.
Musico-thematic relationships among movements of Requiems can be found as well.
Added movements
Some settings contain additional texts, such as the devotional motet Pie Iesu (in the settings of Dvořák, Fauré, Duruflé, and Lloyd Webber – Fauré set it as a soprano solo in the center). Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. ("Free me, Lord, from eternal death upon that terrible day when heaven and earth shall be moved, when thou comest to judge the world with fire.
Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem. Dona eis requiem sempiternam. ("O sweet Lord Jesus, grant them rest; grant them everlasting rest.")Concert requiems
Beginning in the 18th century and continuing through the 19th, many composers wrote what are effectively concert requiems, which by virtue of employing forces too large, or lasting such a considerable duration, prevent them being readily used in an ordinary funeral service; the requiems of Gossec, Berlioz, Verdi, and Dvořák are essentially dramatic concert oratorios.
Non-Catholic requiems
Requiem is also used to describe any sacred composition that sets religious texts that would be appropriate at a funeral, or to describe such compositions for liturgies other than the Catholic mass. Among the earliest examples of this type are the German requiems composed in the 17th century by Schütz and Praetorius, whose works are Lutheran adaptations of the Catholic requiem, and which provided inspiration for the mighty German Requiem by Brahms. A rather exhaustive list of requiem composers can be found on this site.
Such non-Catholic requiems would include:
Protestant Lutheran (German) requiems Anglican (English) requiems Hebrew Kaddish Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church Russian Orthodox PanikhidaAnglican burial service
The Anglican Book of Common Prayer contains seven texts which are collectively known as "funeral sentences"; Yet, O Lord God most holy, O Lord most mighty, O holy and most merciful Saviour, deliver us not into the bitter pains of eternal death.
20th century developments
In the 20th century the requiem evolved in several new directions. The genre of war requiems is perhaps the most notable, which comprise of compositions dedicated to the memory of people killed in wartime. for example, the War Requiem of Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the Latin text with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, and Robert Steadman's Mass in Black intersperses environmental poetry and prophecies of Nostradamus. The several Holocaust requiems may be regarded as a specific subset of this type.
Lastly, the 20th century saw the development of secular requiems, written for public performance without specific religious observance (e.g., Kabalevsky's War Requiem, to poems by Robert Rozhdestvensky), and some composers have written purely instrumental works bearing the title of requiem, as exemplified by the most famous of these, Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem.
Famous Requiems
Many composers have written Requiems. Some of the most famous include:
Mozart's Requiem in D minor, written shortly before his own death. Berlioz' Grande Messe des Morts Verdi's Requiem Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, based on passages from Luther's Bible. Fauré's Requiem in D minor Dvořák's Requiem, Op. 89 Britten's War Requiem, which incorporated poems by Wilfred Owen. Duruflé's Requiem, based almost exclusively on the chants from the Graduale Romanum.Other Requiem composers
Renaissance
Giovanni Francesco Anerio Giammeteo Asola Giulio Belli Antoine Brumel Manuel Cardoso Joan Cererols Pierre Certon Clemens non Papa Guillaume Dufay (lost) Pedro de Escobar Antoine de Févin Francisco Guerrero Jacobus de Kerle Orlande de Lassus Duarte Lobo Jean Maillard Jacques Mauduit Manuel Mendes Cristóbal de Morales Johannes Ockeghem (the earliest to survive) Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Costanzo Porta Johannes Prioris Jean Richafort Pierre de la Rue Claudin de Sermisy Jacobus Vaet Tomás Luis de VictoriaBaroque
Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber Marc-Antoine Charpentier Jean Gilles Claudio Monteverdi (lost) Michael Praetorius Heinrich Schütz Jan Dismas ZelenkaClassical period
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Luigi Cherubini Florian Leopold Gassmann François-Joseph Gossec Michael Haydn Andrea Luchesi José Maurício Nunes GarciaRomantic era
Hector Berlioz João Domingos Bomtempo Johannes Brahms Anton Bruckner Carl Czerny Gaetano Donizetti Antonín Dvořák Gabriel Fauré Charles Gounod Franz Liszt Max Reger Camille Saint-Saëns Robert Schumann Charles Villiers Stanford Giuseppe Verdi Richard Wetz See also: Messa per RossiniPost-romantic |20th century
Alfred Desenclos Maurice Duruflé Herbert Howells Karl Jenkins György Ligeti Frigyes Hidas Frank Martin Krzysztof Penderecki Jocelyn Pook Zbigniew Preisner John Rutter Alfred Schnittke Robert Steadman Igor Stravinsky Toru Takemitsu John Tavener Erkki-Sven Tüür Andrew Lloyd WebberNew Era |21st century
Kentaro Sato Alex LancasterRequiems by language (other than purely Latin)
English with Latin
Benjamin Britten Evgeni Kostitsyn Herbert Howells John RutterGerman
Michael Praetorius Heinrich Schütz Franz Schubert Johannes BrahmsFrench, English, German with Latin
Edison DenisovPolish with Latin
Krzysztof Penderecki Zbigniew PreisnerRussian
Sergei Taneyev - Cantata John of Damascus, Op.1 (Text by Alexey Tolstoy) Dmitri Kabalevsky - War Requiem (Text by Robert Rozhdestvensky) Elena Firsova - Requiem, Op.100 (Text by Anna Akhmatova)
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