The requiem mass is a curious case of a text that has been given hundreds of different musical settings in many different forms -- from plainsong to polyphonic to orchestral -- and styles. The words of the traditional Latin form of the mass are, in themselves, very moving. But the choices composers have made over the centuries have contributed enormously to the emotional and spiritual impact of the text. Each composer who addressed the problem of setting this text had his own motivations and produced a work that bore his individual stamp. A comparison of two requiems, those by Giuseppe Verdi and Gabriel FaurT, demonstrates how the same subject and the same words can be given radically different interpretations by two fine composers. Curiously, in a religious form, neither man was a believer. Yet their Requiems possess the same or even greater spiritual intensity as those of composers who were faithful members of the Church. Since the debuts of these two works listeners have pondered the chemistry of text, personal feeling and musical inspiration that produced the grandeur of public mourning in Verdi's work and the poignant hopefulness of private grief found in FaurT's mass.
The Mass for the Dead or, in its Latin title, the Missa pro defunctis has traditionally been given the name Requiem from the first word of the introit, "Requiem aeterna dona eis, Domine" or "Give them eternal rest, O Lord" (Pruett, p. 751). In the Roman Catholic liturgy there are numerous texts for the Proper of the mass. These change according to the particular events or persons celebrated in the church calendar. Settings for these masses are seldom written because they would be heard only once each year. But the custom developed that the Mass for the Dead, originally said only on All Souls' Day, could be celebrated "at almost any time" (Robertson, p. 11). Aside from the use of the mass for an individual's burial rites it could also be sung on each ...