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Music for the Requiem Mass

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Music for the Requiem Mass

Music for the Requiem Mass is any music that accompanies the Requiem, or Mass for the Dead, in the Catholic Church. This church service has inspired hundreds of compositions, including settings by Victoria, Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Fauré, Dvořák, Duruflé and Britten. For centuries settings of the Mass for the Dead were to be chanted in liturgical service monophonically. Later the settings became polyphonic, Victoria's famous 1605 a cappella work being an example. By Mozart's time (1791) it was standard to embed the dramatic and long Dies irae (Day of Wrath) sequence, and to score with orchestra. Eventually many settings of the Requiem, not least Verdi's (1874), were essentially concert pieces unsuitable for church service.

The following are the texts that have been set to music. Note that the Libera Me and the In Paradisum are not part of the text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead itself, but a part of the burial rite that immediately follows. In Paradisum was traditionally said or sung as the body left the church, and the Libera Me is said/sung at the burial site before interment. These became included in musical settings of the Requiem in the 19th century as composers began to treat the form more liberally.

From 4 Esdras 2:34–35; Psalm 65:1-2

This is as the Kyrie in the Ordinary of the Mass:

This is Greek (Κύριε ἐλέησον, Χριστὲ ἐλέησον, Κύριε ἐλέησον). Each utterance is sung three times, though sometimes that is not the case when sung polyphonically.

From 4 Esdras 2:34–35; Psalm 112:6

A sequence is a liturgical poem sung, when used, after the Tract (or Alleluia, if present). The sequence employed in the Requiem, Dies irae, attributed to Thomas of Celano (c. 1200 – c. 1260–1270), has been called "the greatest of hymns", worthy of "supreme admiration". The Latin text is included in the Requiem Mass in the 1962 Roman Missal. An early English version was translated by William Josiah Irons in 1849.

This is as the Sanctus prayer in the Ordinary of the Mass:

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