Requiem: Difference between revisions

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**[[Requiem in F (Robert Führer)|Requiem in F]]
**[[Requiem in F (Robert Führer)|Requiem in F]]
**[[Einstimmige Requiem, Op. 290 (Robert Führer)|Einstimmige Requiem, Op. 290]]
**[[Einstimmige Requiem, Op. 290 (Robert Führer)|Einstimmige Requiem, Op. 290]]
*[[Kyrie (from 'Requiem in D Minor') (José Mauricio Nunes Garcia)|José Mauricio Nunes Garcia]] (only ''Kyrie'' available)
*[[Requiem (José Maurício Nunes Garcia)|José Mauricio Nunes Garcia]]
*[[Zweites Requiem in C-moll, Op. 21 (Joseph Gruber)|Joseph Gruber]]
*[[Zweites Requiem in C-moll, Op. 21 (Joseph Gruber)|Joseph Gruber]]
*[[Missa de Requiem (P. A. Halik)|P. A. Halik]]
*[[Missa de Requiem (P.A. Halik)|P. A. Halik]]


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Revision as of 14:25, 25 February 2009

Celtic cross.jpg

The Requiem Mass (Totenmesse, Messe des Mortis, Messe des morts, or Missa pro defunctis), a mass honoring the dead, takes its name from the first Latin word of the Introit, which begins Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord).

A musical setting of the requiem differs from the normal sung Mass in that it not only includes certain items of the ordinary mass and excludes others, but also includes the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion sentences from the Proper. The Gloria and Credo are omitted, and a Tract is substituted for the Alleluia. This is followed by the Sequence (Dies irae), which is often is a major dramatic element in the composition. Sometimes responses and other texts are added from the burial service, which usually follows directly after the Mass.


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Original texts and translations

Different composers have set different parts of the Latin Requiem Mass. The liturgical movements are as follows:

The Gradual and Tract are not usually set by composers. Some composers have appended texts from the burial service:

Some settings also contain the following motet:

The Gloria and Credo, normally part of the Mass ordinary, are omitted from the requiem on the grounds that such overtly joyful texts would be out of place in a Mass for the dead.

Some composers have varied the form considerably: where previous French composers had often set the Sequence (Dies irae) in its own right, Gabriel Fauré and Maurice Duruflé did not set it at all in their Requiems. Hector Berlioz reshuffled and slightly altered the lyrics of the Sequence.

The famous Requiem of Tomás Luis de Victoria is actually part of a larger Office of the Dead (Officium defunctorum), as Victoria has supplemented the basic Requiem with a lesson from the service of Matins (Taedet animam meam), a funeral motet (Versa est in luctum), and the Responsory from the burial service (Libera me).

Before the Tridentine reforms standardised the propers of the Requiem Mass, some composers used alternative texts for some movements, e.g. Orlando di Lasso sets the Gradual text Si ambulem in medio umbrae mortis (Though I walk in the middle of the shadow of death).

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