The Requiem: How Composers Set the Mass for the Dead to Music

Some of the most moving music ever written was made for the dead. A requiem is a piece of music for a funeral or memorial, and composers have used it to express many feelings about death: terror, grief, comfort, and hope. This article explains what a requiem is and how a few famous ones differ. It describes the music and does not quote the words.

What is a requiem?

A musical setting of the Catholic Mass for the Dead. Encyclopaedia Britannica explains that the name comes from the first word of the opening prayer, the Introit. A requiem differs from an ordinary Mass. It leaves out the joyful Gloria and Credo. It adds parts such as the Introit and a sequence called the “Dies irae” (Day of Wrath), which often becomes a dramatic centerpiece. Classical Music magazine describes the requiem as a liturgy for funerals and memorial services that countless composers have set in many ways.

What is Mozart’s Requiem?

A famous unfinished work. Mozart’s Requiem (1791) was the last piece he wrote, and it was unfinished when he died. Classical Music reports that it was completed by Franz Xaver Süssmayr and Joseph Eybler. BBC Music’s guide tells readers to forget the stories of a mysterious stranger commissioning it in the dead of night. The Dutch choir Cappella Amsterdam calls it the benchmark of the genre.

Which requiems are the most dramatic?

Those by Verdi, Berlioz, and Cherubini. Classical Music says all three bring an operatic flavor to the Mass, and that Verdi’s Requiem (1874) has perhaps the best-known passage in any of his non-opera works, the thunderous Dies irae. A guide describes Verdi’s work as centered on hell and damnation. Verdi wrote it in memory of the writer Alessandro Manzoni. Berlioz (1837) took the requiem into the realm of the concert showpiece, while Mozart had church services in mind.

Which are the most gentle?

Fauré’s. The Cappella Amsterdam guide describes Fauré’s Requiem as offering comfort instead of damnation, and BBC Music notes that he leaves out the Dies irae entirely. A university paper on the piece is titled “Death’s Lullaby.” The French composer Duruflé also omits it, giving his requiem a similarly accepting feel, according to BBC Music.

What is different about Brahms and Britten?

They broke the rules. Brahms’s A German Requiem (1868) does not set the Latin Mass at all. According to BBC Music, it uses texts from the German Luther Bible, and Cappella Amsterdam says it aims to comfort the living rather than pray for the dead. Britten’s War Requiem was first performed in the new Coventry Cathedral in May 1962. It weaves the Latin Mass together with poems by Wilfred Owen, a poet killed in the last days of World War I, as a comment on the horrors of war.

Are all requiems for funerals?

No. Britannica notes that Britten’s and Brahms’s works do not follow the standard Mass text, and BBC Music says some requiems are written purely as concert works. John Rutter’s Requiem (1985) adds Bible passages and psalms to the Latin text. Across the centuries the requiem has changed from a prayer for the dead to a way of thinking about loss in general.

Where can I learn more?

For music to use at a funeral, see Funeral Songs and Readings: How to Choose. For another art form that mourns, see The Elegy, and for the Catholic funeral itself, Catholic Funeral Traditions.