Requiems in the 20th Century
Transitioning from the sacred Roman Catholic Requiem Mass origins to 20th century sacred/secular compositions
Intro
I was raised in the Protestant Episcopal tradition which is very close to the Roman Catholic Church in terms of the liturgy, the music and hymns, the vestments that are worn during the services and the resulting pageantry (for lack of a better word.)
The Episcopal denomination in America branched off of England’s Anglican Church and, of course, the Anglican Church of England broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. Therefore, it is understandable that the liturgical and musical traditions of the Roman Catholic Church and the Episcopal Church would be very similar.
Having sung in church choirs and participated in handbell choirs, I have become very fond of hymns and sacred music, including the requiem. The music really touches my soul and there are no words to describe how I feel when listening or performing this genre of music.
When I first set out to write this blog post, I was very curious to see if the Roman Catholic Church had any official opinions on 20th century music in general or on requiems that were composed in the 20th century. After all, the Roman Catholic Church has certainly had opinions throughout history regarding what music could be included in the Mass and what should be excluded. I also decided to focus on the Catholic Church’s response to 20th century music rather than any other Christian denomination as the Roman Catholic Church has the highest number of worldwide adherents of any Christian group.
My search did not turn out to be fruitful so I directed my research to explore some of the requiems that were written in the 20th century. What are the similarities and differences between requiems composed in the 20th century and those composed prior to the 20th century?
First, what is a Requiem?
Actually, this is a great question that I ask! There is the Requiem Mass that is said at Catholic services or funerals for the souls of those who have died. I want to be clear that my blog post pertains to musical compositions in which a composer has set different portions of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass to music.
The word, “requiem” comes from the introit, “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” which is translated to “Grant them eternal rest, O Lord.”
Requiems have been composed throughout the centuries. According to an article by Alex Lingas on the “Requiem Mass” in the Oxford Music Online, the earliest surviving documentation of a Requiem Mass would be one composed by Johannes Ockeghem, a 15th century Franco-Flemish (Belgian) composer. Lingas also relays that there may have been a prior requiem composed by Guillaume Dufay. Dufay mentions in his will that his musical settings for the Requiem Mass should be played at his funeral but there is no surviving score.
Perhaps one of the most famous requiems would be Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, albeit more so for the story behind this requiem. Mozart actually did not finishing composing the requiem before his own death. You can read the intriguing story here on the Concert Vienna website.
The evolving requiem
Prior to the 18th century, musical settings for a requiem were composed to accompany an actual Requiem Mass for the deceased and held inside the Roman Catholic Church. Martin Hoondert describes in his chapter on “Modern Requiem Compositions and Musical Knowledge of Death and Afterlife,” how Mozart’s Requiem in D minor was probably the first in the genre of requiems to be held outside the church. The performance of Mozart’s Requiem had been a benefit concert for Mozart’s widow and children.
Composers of the 20th Century Requiem
I noticed during my research on 20th Requiem that there is not much scholarly research that has been completed in this area. The literature that I have reviewed discuss a few specific 20th century requiems but I was unable to locate a source that had a complete list… with exception of wikipedia. While not a scholarly source, I will include the list here:
There are a few 21st century requiems but I have decided to only focus on 20th century requiems for this blog post.
Requiems of the 20th Century — how are they different from the original settings for the Requiem Mass?
There are two major differences between the requiems composed in the 20th century and the requiems prior to the 18th century. These differences are the venue for performance and the texts set to music. There is a secularization that starts to occur in the 19th to 20th centuries. Requiems are no longer composed with the intention of being a part of a Roman Catholic Requiem Mass and the venue moves to a setting outside of the church, such as the concert hall.
In addition, the text settings are often secular works such as poems. An example would be Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem (1961–1962). Author Douglas Lee, in his book Masterworks of 20th-Century Music : The Modern Repertory of the Symphony Orchestra, states the following about Britten’s War Requiem (p. 104):
Britten used the texts of Owen’s War Poems throughout the requiem, not just on the title page.
20th century requiems also differ in that the composer has a message to deliver. Many of the 20th century requiems dealt with the topic of war and the death and devastation due to war. While traditional Requiem Mass in a church setting is to honor one person and uses only the standard Latin texts, 20th century requiems honor the masses of dead resulting from war and destruction and utilize both Latin liturgical texts and secular texts.
Krzysztof Penderecki’s Polish Requiem (1984, revised 1993 and 2005) is another example of a requiem with a message. Ray Robinson in his excellent article, “The ‘Polish Requiem’ by Krzysztof Penderecki,” discusses the nationalistic and Polish historical messages within this requiem. Robinson states, “The title of Polish Requiem came from the desire of the composer to dedicate certain parts of the work to particular events or personalities in the recent history of Poland, a period which the composer calls ‘a very turbulent time in our history’.” Robinson goes on to say that the Polish Requiem “is clearly a musical composition with a dual significance. In addition to its religious text and its musical intent, it is also patriotic in nature.” (p. 5). Certainly, this type of requiem is very different from the first musical settings to the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass during the early eras of Western Art Music.
Pendercki’s Polish Requiem is quite impressive and I highly recommend a listen:
György Ligeti also composed a Requiem (1963–1965) and it has to be the most haunting requiem that I have listened to. In an American Symphony Orchestra program note for the performance of Ligeti’s Requiem, author Byron Adams relays, “That Ligeti had close acquaintance with death is unquestioned given the circumstances of his youth. Born in Transylvania to a family at once Hungarian and Jewish, he was sent to a forced labor camp in 1944. Ligeti’s teenaged brother perished in the Mauthausen concentration camp and both of his parents were sent to Auschwitz. Astoundingly, his mother survived.”
In her book, Musical Journeys: Performing Migration in Twentieth-Century Music, Florian Scheding states that “Despite Ligeti’s private admission to Adorno that his Requiem (1963−65) was written in memory of the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, the piece has no features that make such an implicit dedication readily accessible or audible to the listener” (p. 155).
While this might be true that there is no text that references the Holocaust, I can certainly hear the darkness, terror, discouragement and death in this requiem. Ligeti utilizes a lot of dissonance to accomplish this effect.
Bernd Alois Zimmermann (1918–1970) was a German composer who also created a requiem with content related to World War II. The title is “Requiem für einem jungen Dichter” or “Requiem for a young poet” (1969). In Martha Sprigge’s article, “Tape Work and Memory Work in Post-War Germany,” she states that Zimmermann used “pre-recorded tape montage of political speeches above acoustic choral lines. His sources include Joseph Goebbels’s famous interrogation: ‘I ask you, do you want total war?’ (‘Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?’) followed by a terrifying ‘yes’ from the thousands-strong crowd.” (p. 51).
Zimmermann’s Requiem is another very haunting piece and I would posit that it’s the farthest away in terms of compositional style from the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. As Martha Sprigge mentions, Zimmermann uses taped recordings of political speeches. He also includes the music of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and a snippet of the The Beatles’ “Hey Jude”. I’ll be honest, it’s a very tough piece to listen to and I couldn’t bring myself to listen to the full version.
Lastly and ironically, even those who are an “avowed atheist” have composed 20th century requiems. Frederick Delius (1862-1934) composed a requiem dedicated to those who died in World War I. While this inspiration is admirable, I have a hard time mentioning this requiem as Delius appears to be relaying in his requiem that there is no life after death. This is quite contradictory to the purpose of a requiem and I would not think the message would be comforting at all to those who have lost a loved one. But I feel that one should be inclusive of all research findings. Here is a link to an article describing Delius’ Requiem (1916).
Conclusion
As you can see, requiems have evolved over time. Initially intended to be musical settings of Latin text for the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, requiems in the 20th century were utilized to portray a message, usually on the death and destruction of war.
