I love requiems. And I’ve sung quite a few. I stumbled across How To Compose a Requiem. “At some point in their journey, nearly every single composer is possessed by the idea of I need to write a requiem, and it’s not hard to see why…
“The secret to composing a requiem-style theme is to make sure your music contains four specific attributes:
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It should be written in a minor key
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It should use a few well-placed sus chords
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It should have a slow-moving melody
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It should use either counterpoint or part-writing to create the accompaniment.
My favorite 90 seconds of a requiem might be the beginning of the Dies Irae, a theme repeated throughout the Verdi requiem. Here’s a weird story: I was supposed to sing the Verdi as part of a mass choir in the late 1980s. I was walking to the bus stop when I saw a young man, maybe a tween, get hit by a car. Remarkably, he was so long-legged that the manner he was hit made him roll over the hood, across the top of the vehicle, and over the trunk of the car. He landed on his feet seemingly unharmed! But I stayed there, made a report to the police, and I never got to do the singing.
The requiem piece I have sung most frequently is the English translation of the fourth movement of Brahms’s German Requiem, How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place. I have sung it at several funerals, most recently the one for Jim Kalas.
Fauré
“Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, between 1887 and 1890. The choral-orchestral setting of the shortened Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin is the best-known of his large works. Its focus is on eternal rest and consolation.” I know I sang this in both 2000 and 2002, and perhaps later.
Versions by: Sinfonia Rotterdam/ Laurenscantorij/ Conrad van Alphen (2015). VOCES8: “with the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Barnaby Smith. The performance was filmed at Cadogan Hall, London in 2021 during the height of the pandemic, and this orchestration by Taylor Scott Davis was created especially for the concert.”
Rutter
“John Rutter‘s Requiem was completed in 1985. Five of its seven movements are based on text from the Latin Requiem Mass, while the second movement is a setting of “Out of the deep” (Psalm 130) and the sixth movement is an anthem, The Lord is my Shepherd (Psalm 23), which Rutter had earlier written.” Many years ago, I sang it in a choir and small orchestra, but it still sticks with me.
Out of the Deep, which features the cello, sounds like a blues. The Lord Is My Shepherd, which I’ve sung apart from the whole piece, would be a great funeral song.
Versions: Conducted by John Rutter – Florence Debut; UNT A Cappella Choir
Mozart
You haven’t done the Berlioz Requiem? How sad! (It is scored for HUNDREDS of musicians, between the giant orchestra, giant chorus, and the four, yes FOUR, brass choirs placed at the compass points relative to the main ensemble!)