A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is usually celebrated in the context of a

funeral A funeral is a ceremony connected with the final disposition of a corpse, such as a burial or cremation, with the attendant observances. Funerary customs comprise the complex of beliefs and practices used by a culture to remember and respect th ...

(where in some countries it is often called a Funeral Mass). Musical settings of the propers of the Requiem Mass are also called Requiems, and the term has subsequently been applied to other musical compositions associated with death, dying, and mourning, even when they lack religious or liturgical relevance. The term is also used for similar ceremonies outside the Roman Catholic Church, especially in Western Rite Orthodox Christianity, the Anglo-Catholic tradition of

Anglicanism Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of the ...

, and in certain Lutheran churches. A comparable service, with a wholly different ritual form and texts, exists in the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches as well as some Methodist churches. The Mass and its settings draw their name from the introit of the liturgy, which begins with the words ( Latin for "Eternal rest grant them, O Lord"), which is cited from

2 Esdras 2 Esdras (also called 4 Esdras, Latin Esdras, or Latin Ezra) is an apocalyptic book in some English versions of the Bible. Tradition ascribes it to Ezra, a scribe and priest of the , but scholarship places its composition between 70 and . It ...

—''requiem'' is the accusative singular form of the Latin noun , "rest, repose". The Roman Missal as revised in 1970 employs this phrase as the first entrance antiphon among the formulas for Masses for the dead, and it remains in use to this day.

Liturgical rite

In earlier forms of the Roman Rite, some of which are still in use, a Requiem Mass differs in several ways from the usual Mass. Some parts that were of relatively recent origin, including some that have been excluded in the 1970 revision of the regular Mass, are omitted. Examples are the psalm ''Iudica'' at the start of Mass, the prayer said by the priest before reading the Gospel (or the blessing of the deacon, if a deacon reads it), and the first of the two prayers of the priest for himself before receiving Communion. Other omissions include the use of incense at the Introit and the Gospel, the kiss of peace, lit candles held by acolytes when a deacon chants the Gospel, and blessings. There is no Gloria in excelsis Deo and no recitation of the

Creed A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets. The ea ...

; the Alleluia chant before the Gospel is replaced by a

Tract Tract may refer to: Geography and real estate * Housing tract, an area of land that is subdivided into smaller individual lots * Land lot or tract, a section of land * Census tract, a geographic region defined for the purpose of taking a census ...

, as in

Lent Lent ( la, Quadragesima, 'Fortieth') is a solemn religious observance in the liturgical calendar commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan, according to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke ...

; and the is altered. is replaced with (May they rest in peace); the response is replaced with . Black was the obligatory liturgical colour of the vestments in the earlier forms, while in the renewed liturgy "besides violet, white or black vestments may be worn at funeral services and at other Offices and Masses for the Dead", The sequence Dies irae, recited or sung between the

and the Gospel, was an obligatory part of the Requiem Mass before the changes as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council. As its opening words ("Day of wrath") indicate, this poetic composition speaks of the Day of Judgment in fearsome terms; it then appeals to Jesus for mercy. In the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, commemorations (i.e. collect, secret, and postcommunion of either lower-ranking liturgical feasts that occur on the same day or votive/seasonal commemorations) are absent from the liturgy; as a result, it is standard practice for a separate, smaller Requiem Missal containing only the rubrics and various Mass formularies for Masses for the dead to be used, rather than the full Missal containing texts that will never be used at Requiems.

Roman Rite

In the liturgical reforms of the mid-20th century in the Roman Catholic Church, there was a significant shift in the funeral rites used by the Church. The theme of sorrow and grief was also made to emphasize the whole community's worship of God in which the deceased is entrusted to God's mercy, based on trust in the salvific value of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. In the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, term "Requiem Mass" was sometimes termed a "Mass of the Resurrection" or Mass of Christian Burial, although the former was never official terminology. In the official English ritual, ''Order of Christian Funerals'', published by the Roman Catholic Bishops of England and Wales in 1990, the title is given as "Funeral Mass". Requiem Mass remains a suitable title for other Masses for the dead and for the Funeral Mass itself, (as the proper antiphons remain in force, Introit: "Eternal rest grant ... " / ""; Offertory: "Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory, deliver the souls of all the faithful departed ... " / "", Communion: "Let perpetual light shine ..." / ""). In line with those trend of the latter 21st century, the use of white vestments was made an allowable option by the Missal, though only by an indult; black remains the normal color of all Requiem Masses, including Funeral Masses. Violet, a color of penance, was also allowed by indult, since penance and reparation for the soul, presumably in Purgatory, is encouraged by the Church. The texts used for the liturgy experienced a similar change, with more options for the readings, some of which reinforce an overall theme of the promise of eternal life made by Jesus.

Requiem in other rites and churches

''Requiem'' is also used to describe any sacred composition that sets to music religious texts which would be appropriate at a funeral, or to describe such compositions for liturgies other than the Roman Catholic Mass. Among the earliest examples of this type are the German settings composed in the 17th century by Heinrich Schütz and Michael Praetorius, whose works are Lutheran adaptations of the Roman Catholic requiem, and which provided inspiration for the '' German Requiem'' by Brahms. Such works include: * Greek Orthodox Church—''

Parastas A memorial service (Greek: μνημόσυνον, mnemósynon, "memorial"; Slavonic: панихида, panikhída, from Greek παννυχίς, ''pannychis'', "vigil"; Romanian: parastas and Serbian парастос, parastos, from Greek παρ� ...

'' * Russian Orthodox Church—''Panikhida'' * Anglican (English) Requiem

Eastern Christian rites

In the Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Churches, the requiem is the fullest form of memorial service ( el, μνημόσυνο, Slavonic: ). The normal memorial service is a greatly abbreviated form of Matins, but the Requiem contains all of the psalms, readings, and hymns normally found in the All-Night Vigil (which combines the

Canonical Hours In the practice of Christianity, canonical hours mark the divisions of the day in terms of fixed times of prayer at regular intervals. A book of hours, chiefly a breviary, normally contains a version of, or selection from, such prayers. In ...

of Vespers, Matins and First Hour), providing a complete set of propers for the departed. The full requiem will last around three-and-a-half hours. In this format it more clearly represents the original concept of ''parastas'', which means literally, "standing throughout (the night)." Often, there will be a Divine Liturgy celebrated the next morning with further propers for the departed. Because of their great length, a full Requiem is rarely served. However, at least in the Russian liturgical tradition, a Requiem will often be served on the eve before the Glorification (canonization) of a

saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of Q-D-Š, holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and Christian denomination, denominat ...

, in a special service known as the "Last ''Panikhida''".

Anglicanism

The '' Book of Common Prayer'' contained no Requiem Mass, but instead a service named "The Order for the Burial of the Dead". Since the liturgical reform movement, provision has been made for a Eucharist to be celebrated at a funeral in various BCPs used in the various Provinces of the Anglican Communion. Prior to these additions,

Anglo-Catholics Anglo-Catholicism comprises beliefs and practices that emphasise the Catholic heritage and identity of the various Anglican churches. The term was coined in the early 19th century, although movements emphasising the Catholic nature of Anglican ...

or High Church Anglicans often incorporated parts of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass as part of a funeral service — typically passages from the Ordinary of the Mass. Within this service are several texts with rubrics stating that they should be said or sung by the priest or clerks. The first few of these texts are found at the beginning of the service, while the rest are prescribed for the burial itself. These texts are typically divided into seven, and collectively known as "funeral sentences". Composers who have set the Anglican burial service to music include William Croft, Thomas Morley, Thomas Tomkins, Orlando Gibbons and

Henry Purcell Henry Purcell (, rare: September 1659 – 21 November 1695) was an English composer. Purcell's style of Baroque music was uniquely English, although it incorporated Italian and French elements. Generally considered among the greatest E ...

. The text of these seven sentences, from the 1662 ''Book of Common Prayer'', is as follows: * I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. * I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another. * We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord. * Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. * In the midst of life we are in death: of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord, who for our sins art justly displeased? 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. * Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayer; but spare us, Lord most holy, O God most mighty, O holy and merciful Saviour, thou most worthy judge eternal, suffer us not, at our last hour, for any pains of death, to fall from thee. * I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours.

Music

The Requiem Mass is notable for the large number of musical compositions that it has inspired, including settings by

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

(though uncompleted),) Verdi, Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Brahms (from the vernacular German

Lutheran Bible The Luther Bible (german: Lutherbibel) is a German language Bible translation from Latin sources by Martin Luther. The New Testament was first published in September 1522, and the complete Bible, containing the Old and New Testaments with Apocry ...

), Dvořák, Fauré, Duruflé, and others. Originally, such compositions were meant to be performed in liturgical service, with monophonic chant. Eventually, the dramatic character of the text began to appeal to composers to an extent that they made the requiem a genre of its own, and the compositions of composers such as Verdi are essentially concert pieces rather than liturgical works. Many of the texts in the Requiem Mass have been set to music, including: * Introit * Kyrie eleison * Gradual *

* Sequence (the ''Dies Irae'') *

Offertory The offertory (from Medieval Latin ''offertorium'' and Late Latin ''offerre'') is the part of a Eucharistic service when the bread and wine for use in the service are ceremonially placed on the altar. A collection of alms (offerings) from the c ...

* Sanctus * Agnus Dei * Communion *

Pie Jesu "Pie Jesu" ( ; original Latin: "Pie Iesu" ) is a text from the final couplet of the hymn " Dies irae", and is often included in musical settings of the Requiem Mass as a motet. The phrase means " pious Jesus" in the vocative. Popular settings The s ...

* Libera Me *

In paradisum "In paradisum" (English: "Into paradise") is an antiphon from the traditional Latin liturgy of the Western Church Requiem Mass. It is sung by the choir as the body is being taken out of the church. The text of the ''In paradisum'' — with or wit ...

History of musical compositions

For many centuries the texts of the requiem were sung to Gregorian melodies. The

Requiem A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead ( la, Missa pro defunctis) or Mass of the dead ( la, Missa defunctorum), is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, ...

by Johannes Ockeghem, written sometime in the latter half of the 15th century, is the earliest surviving

polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

setting. There was a setting by the elder composer Dufay, possibly earlier, which is now lost: Ockeghem's may have been modelled on it.Fabrice Fitch: "Requiem (2)", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 21, 2007) Many early compositions reflect the varied texts that were in use in different liturgies around Europe before the Council of Trent standardised texts used in liturgies. The requiem of

Brumel Brumel may refer to: * Antoine Brumel (c.1460–c.1515), Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer * Jacques Brunel (died 1564), also known as Giaches Brumel, 16th century French organist and composer * Valeriy Brumel (1942–2003), Soviet-Ru ...

, circa 1500, is the first to include the '' Dies Iræ''. In the early polyphonic settings of the Requiem, there is considerable textural contrast within the compositions themselves: simple chordal or fauxbourdon-like passages are contrasted with other sections of contrapuntal complexity, such as in the Offertory of Ockeghem's Requiem. In the 16th century, more and more composers set the Requiem Mass. In contrast to practice in setting the Mass Ordinary, many of these settings used a cantus-firmus technique, something which had become quite archaic by mid-century. In addition, these settings used less textural contrast than the early settings by Ockeghem and Brumel, although the vocal scoring was often richer, for example in the six-voice Requiem by Jean Richafort which he wrote for the death of

Josquin des Prez Josquin Lebloitte dit des Prez ( – 27 August 1521) was a composer of High Renaissance music, who is variously described as French or Franco-Flemish. Considered one of the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he was a central figure of the ...

. Other composers before 1550 include Pedro de Escobar,

Antoine de Févin Antoine de Févin (ca. 1470 – late 1511 or early 1512) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He was active at the same time as Josquin des Prez, and shares many traits with his more famous contemporary. Life Févin was most likely b ...

Cristóbal Morales Cristóbal or Cristobal, the Spanish version of Christopher, is a masculine given name and a surname which may refer to: Given name *Cristóbal Balenciaga (1895–1972), Spanish fashion designer *Cristóbal Cobo (born 1976), Chilean academic *Cri ...

, and Pierre de La Rue; that by La Rue is probably the second oldest, after Ockeghem's. Over 2,000 Requiem compositions have been composed to the present day. Typically the Renaissance settings, especially those not written on the Iberian Peninsula, may be performed ''

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

'' (i.e. without necessary accompanying instrumental parts), whereas beginning around 1600 composers more often preferred to use instruments to accompany a choir, and also include vocal soloists. There is great variation between compositions in how much of liturgical text is set to music. Most composers omit sections of the liturgical prescription, most frequently the Gradual and the Tract. Fauré omits the ''Dies iræ'', while the very same text had often been set by French composers in previous centuries as a stand-alone work. Sometimes composers divide an item of the liturgical text into two or more movements; because of the length of its text, the ''Dies iræ'' is the most frequently divided section of the text (as with Mozart, for instance). The ''Introit'' and ''Kyrie'', being immediately adjacent in the actual Roman Catholic liturgy, are often composed as one movement. Musico-thematic relationships among movements within a Requiem can be found as well.

Requiem in concert

Beginning in the 18th century and continuing through the 19th, many composers wrote what are effectively concert works, 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. A counter-reaction to this tendency came from the Cecilian movement, which recommended restrained accompaniment for liturgical music, and frowned upon the use of operatic vocal soloists.

Notable compositions

Many composers have composed Requiems. Some of the most notable include the following (in chronological order): * Johannes Ockeghem:

(1461?) * Antoine Brumel: Requiem * Tomás Luis de Victoria:

Officium Defunctorum The Office of the Dead or Office for the Dead (in Latin, Officium Defunctorum) is a prayer cycle of the Canonical Hours in the Catholic Church, Anglican Church and Lutheran Church, said for the repose of the soul of a decedent. It is the proper r ...

(1603) *

Eustache du Caurroy François-Eustache du Caurroy (baptised February 4, 1549 – August 7, 1609) was a French composer of the late Renaissance. He was a prominent composer of both secular and sacred music at the end of the Renaissance, including '' musique mesurée'' ...

: Missa pro defunctis quinque vocum (1610) * Marc-Antoine Charpentier: Messe pour les trépassée à 8, H.2, Dies irae H.12, Motet pour les trépassés à 8, H.311, Messe des morts à 4 voix H.7 & Messe des morts à 4 voix et symphonie H.10 (1670–1690) * Jean Gilles: Requiem *

André Campra André Campra (; baptized 4 December 1660 – 29 June 1744) was a French composer and conductor of the Baroque era. The leading French opera composer in the period between Jean-Baptiste Lully and Jean-Philippe Rameau, Campra wrote several '' tra ...

: Requiem * François-Joseph Gossec: Requiem (1760) *

Michael Haydn Johann Michael Haydn (; 14 September 173710 August 1806) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period, the younger brother of Joseph Haydn. Life Michael Haydn was born in 1737 in the Austrian village of Rohrau, near the Hungarian border. ...

: Missa pro Defunctis, Klafsky I:8, MH 155 (1771) * Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

, K. 626 (1791) * Antonio Salieri: Requiem in C minor (1804) *

Luigi Cherubini Luigi Cherubini ( ; ; 8 or 14 SeptemberWillis, in Sadie (Ed.), p. 833 1760 – 15 March 1842) was an Italian Classical and Romantic composer. His most significant compositions are operas and sacred music. Beethoven regarded Cherubini as the gre ...

: Requiem in C minor (1816), Requiem in D minor (1836) *

Hector Berlioz In Greek mythology, Hector (; grc, Ἕκτωρ, Hektōr, label=none, ) is a character in Homer's Iliad. He was a Trojan prince and the greatest warrior for Troy during the Trojan War. Hector led the Trojans and their allies in the defense o ...

, Op. 5 (1837) *

Anton Bruckner Josef Anton Bruckner (; 4 September 182411 October 1896) was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-Germ ...

, WAB 39 (1849) *

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

: A German Requiem, Op. 45 (1865–68) * Théodore Gouvy: Requiem in E-flat minor (1874) *

Giuseppe Verdi Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January 1901) was an Italian composer best known for his operas. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, receiving a musical education with the h ...

Messa da Requiem The ''Messa da Requiem'' is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass ( Requiem) for four soloists, double choir and orchestra by Giuseppe Verdi. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, whom Verdi admired. The first performance, at ...

(1874) *

Camille Saint-Saëns Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns (; 9 October 183516 December 1921) was a French composer, organist, conductor and pianist of the Romantic music, Romantic era. His best-known works include Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso (1863), the Piano C ...

, Op. 54 (1878) *

Antonín Dvořák Antonín Leopold Dvořák ( ; ; 8 September 1841 – 1 May 1904) was a Czechs, Czech composer. Dvořák frequently employed rhythms and other aspects of the folk music of Moravian traditional music, Moravia and his native Bohemia, following t ...

, Op. 89, B. 165 (1890) *

Gabriel Fauré Gabriel Urbain Fauré (; 12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers ...

, Op. 48 (1887–90) * Frederick Delius:

(1913–16) * Herbert Howells:

(1932) * Maurice Duruflé:

, Op. 9 (1947) * Benjamin Britten: War Requiem, Op. 66 (1961–62) * György Ligeti:

(1963–65) *

Igor Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...

: Requiem Canticles (1966) * Bernd Alois Zimmermann:

Requiem für einen jungen Dichter ' (''Requiem for a Young Poet'') is an extended composition by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, written from 1967 to 1969 for two speakers, soprano and baritone soloists, three choirs, jazz band, organ, tapes and a large orchestra. Subtitled ''Lingual'' (sp ...

(1967–69) * Krzysztof Penderecki:

A Polish Requiem ''Polish Requiem'' (original Polish title: '' Requiem''; german: Requiem), also ''A Polish Requiem'', is a large-scale requiem mass for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The Lacrimosa, dedicated to ...

(1980–2005) *

Andrew Lloyd Webber Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born 22 March 1948), is an English composer and impresario of musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 21 musicals, ...

(1985) * John Rutter:

(1985) * Serban Nichifor:

(1990) * Hans Werner Henze:

(1991–93) * Christopher Rouse:

(2002) * Karl Jenkins:

(2005) *

Dan Forrest Daniel Ernest Forrest Jr. (born January 7, 1978) is an American composer, pianist, educator, and music editor. Biography Dan Forrest was born in Breesport, New York, and began piano lessons with his elementary school music teacher at age 8. In ...

Requiem for the Living ''Requiem for the Living'' is a choral composition in five movements by Dan Forrest, completed in 2013, an extended setting of the Requiem, scored for boy soprano, soprano, choir and orchestra. The Latin text that Forrest set combines sections f ...

(2013)

Modern treatments

In the 20th century the requiem evolved in several new directions. The genre of War Requiem is perhaps the most notable, which comprise compositions dedicated to the memory of people killed in wartime. These often include extra-liturgical poems of a pacifist or non-liturgical nature; for example, the '' War Requiem'' of Benjamin Britten juxtaposes the Latin text with the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Krzysztof Penderecki's ''

Polish Requiem ''Polish Requiem'' (original Polish title: '' Requiem''; german: Requiem), also ''A Polish Requiem'', is a large-scale requiem mass for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. The Lacrimosa, dedicated to ...

'' includes a traditional Polish hymn within the sequence, and Robert Steadman's '' Mass in Black'' intersperses

environmental A biophysical environment is a biotic and abiotic surrounding of an organism or population, and consequently includes the factors that have an influence in their survival, development, and evolution. A biophysical environment can vary in scale f ...

poetry and prophecies of Nostradamus. Holocaust Requiem may be regarded as a specific subset of this type. The ''Requiem Ebraico'' (Hebrew Requiem) (1945) by Austrian-American composer Eric Zeisl, a setting of Psalm 92 dedicated to the memory of the composer's father "and the other countless victims of the Jewish tragedy in Europe", is considered the first major work of Holocaust commemoration.

John Foulds John Herbert Foulds (; 2 November 188025 April 1939) was an English cellist and composer of classical music. He was largely self-taught as a composer, and belongs among the figures of the English Musical Renaissance. A successful composer of li ...

's '' A World Requiem'' was written in the aftermath of the First World War and initiated the Royal British Legion's annual festival of remembrance. Recent requiem works by Taiwanese composers

Tyzen Hsiao Tyzen Hsiao (; 1 January 1938 – 24 February 2015) was a Taiwanese composer of the neo-Romantic school. Many of his vocal works set poems written in Taiwanese Hokkien, the mother tongue of the majority of the island's residents at the time. Hi ...

and

Ko Fan-long Ko Fan-long (; born 1947) is a Taiwanese composer. He is a professor of composition at the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) in Taipei. (Ko's family name is pronounced "Kuh", as in the English word ''cup''.) Life and career Ko, a native o ...

follow in this tradition, honouring victims of the February 28 Incident and subsequent

White Terror White Terror is the name of several episodes of mass violence in history, carried out against anarchists, communists, socialists, liberals, revolutionaries, or other opponents by conservative or nationalist groups. It is sometimes contrasted wit ...

. The 20th century saw the development of the secular Requiem, written for public performance without specific religious observance, such as Max Reger's ''

'' (1915), the setting of a German poem titled Requiem and dedicated to victims of World War I, and Frederick Delius's ''

'', completed in 1916 and dedicated to "the memory of all young Artists fallen in the war";Corleonis, Adrian
Requiem, for soprano, baritone, double chorus & orchestra, RT ii/8
''All Music Guide'' Retrieved 2011-02-20 Paul Hindemith's ''When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd: A Requiem for Those We Love'', commissioned in 1945 (premiered 1946) after the passing of

Franklin Delano Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (; ; January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), often referred to by his initials FDR, was an American politician and attorney who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. As the ...

, and based on Walt Whitman's elegy written after the passing of Abraham Lincoln; and

Dmitry Kabalevsky Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky (russian: Дми́трий Бори́сович Кабале́вский ; 14 February 1987) was a Soviet composer, conductor, pianist and pedagogue of Russian gentry descent. He helped set up the Union of Soviet Co ...

's ''

'' (Op. 72; 1962), a setting of a poem written by Robert Rozhdestvensky especially for the composition.Flaxman, Fred.
Controversial Comrade Kabalevsky
''Compact Discoveries with Fred Flaxman'', 2007, Retrieved 2011-02-20; Herbert Howells's unaccompanied ''Requiem'' uses Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd"), Psalm 121 ("I will lift up mine eyes"), "Salvator mundi" ("O Saviour of the world" in English), "Requiem aeternam" (two different settings), and "I heard a voice from heaven". John Rutter combines in his

(1985) some of the parts of the Latin Requiem with two complete psalms, Psalm 130 "Out of the deep" and his earlier composition '' The Lord is my Shepherd'', and juxtaposes more biblical verses within the Latin movements. Some composers have written purely instrumental works bearing the title of ''Requiem'', as famously exemplified by Britten's ''Sinfonia da Requiem''. Hans Werner Henze's ''

Das Floß der Medusa ' (''The Raft of the Medusa'') is a secular oratorio by the German composer Hans Werner Henze. It is regarded as a seminal work in the composer's alignment with left-wing politics. Background Henze wrote it as a Requiem for Che Guevara, and set i ...

'', written in 1968 as a requiem for Che Guevara, is properly speaking an oratorio; Henze's

is instrumental but retains the traditional Latin titles for the movements.

's '' Requiem Canticles'' mixes instrumental movements with segments of the "Introit", "Dies irae", "Pie Jesu" and "Libera me".

Notes

External links

Alphabetical Requiems Survey

Online Guide to Requiem

*
British Pathé News clips of the Catholic Police Guild Annual Solemn Requiem

Fauré's "Requiem"
- Spanish Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Petri Sakari, conductor. Live concert. {{Authority control Christian prayer Christian terminology Death customs Death music Mass (liturgy) Latin religious words and phrases Liturgy of the Hours