Requiem | |
---|---|
by Andrew Lloyd Webber | |
Text | Requiem |
Language | Latin |
Dedication | memory of William Lloyd Webber |
Performed | 24 February 1985 |
Scoring |
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Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem is a requiem mass, which premiered in 1985. It was written in memory of the composer's father, William Lloyd Webber, who died in 1982.
It was a new venture for Lloyd Webber, the composer of numerous musicals, to create a piece of traditional classical music. The music mixes Lloyd Webber's melodic and pop-oriented style with more complex, sophisticated, and at times even austere forms.
An initial draft of Requiem was heard during the 1984 Sydmonton Festival, after which Lloyd Webber spent an additional half-year polishing the work. [1] The premiere took place on 24 February 1985 in St. Thomas Church, New York; [2] the conductor was Lorin Maazel, and the three soloists were Plácido Domingo, Sarah Brightman (Lloyd Webber's wife at the time), and Paul Miles-Kingston.
Requiem won the 1986 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition. [2] The most popular segment of Requiem has been the Pie Jesu, which became a hit single and has been recorded by numerous artists.
On 20 July 2013, Lorin Maazel revisited Requiem at the Castleton Festival. Featured performers were soprano Joyce El-Khoury, tenor Tyler Nelson, and treble Tommy Richman. [3]
Since then the work has been rarely, if ever, performed live.
The best-known part of Lloyd Webber's Requiem, the "Pie Jesu" segment, combines the traditional Pie Jesu text with that of the Agnus Dei from later in the standard Requiem Mass. It was originally performed by Sarah Brightman, who premiered the selection in 1985 in a duet with boy soprano Paul Miles-Kingston; a music video of their duet was created as well. [4] The performance by Brightman and Miles-Kingston was a certified Silver hit in the UK in 1985. [5] Brightman later rerecorded the track for her Classics album in 2001.
Pie Jesu has since been recorded frequently outside of the parent Requiem. Notable solo artists include Sarah Brightman, Jackie Evancho, Sissel Kyrkjebø, Marie Osmond, Anna Netrebko, Amira Willighagen and Michelle Bass. Charlotte Church sang it on her best-selling debut album, Voice of an Angel (1998). Angelis, a children's choir, sang it on their eponymous debut album Angelis (2006). Moe Koffman recorded the Pie Jesu on his recently re-issued album Music for the Night (1991) with Doug Riley.
The Pie Jesu was voted number 91 in the Classic 100 Twentieth Century countdown in 2011 on the Australian ABC Classic FM radio station.
In his Requiem, Lloyd Webber combined the text of the traditional Pie Jesu with that of the version of the Agnus Dei formerly appointed to be used at Requiem Masses:
Pie Jesu, (×4) Qui tollis peccata mundi, Dona eis requiem. (×2) | Pious Jesus, Who takes away the sins of the world, Give them rest. |
Agnus Dei, (×4) Qui tollis peccata mundi, Dona eis requiem, (×2) Sempiternam (×2) Requiem. | Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world, Give them rest, Everlasting Rest. |
The work is scored for chorus, three soloists (tenor, soprano, treble) and a large orchestra that includes organ, drum kit, and synthesizer.
As is usual, Lloyd Webber did not set the Gradual and Tract texts of the Mass. He divides the Sanctus between two movements, including the Hosanna part with the Benedictus. He does not set the Agnus Dei separately, but rather combined the text of Pie Jesu, a motet derived from the final couplet of the usual Dies irae, with that of the Agnus Dei, commonly heard later in the standard Requiem Mass. He includes a text from the burial service, Libera me.
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, and therefore also referred to as the Manzoni Requiem. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, conducted by the composer, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. It was followed three days later by the same performers at La Scala. Verdi conducted his work at major venues in Europe.
The Requiem in D minor, K. 626, is a Requiem Mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791). Mozart composed part of the Requiem in Vienna in late 1791, but it was unfinished at his death on 5 December the same year. A completed version dated 1792 by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had commissioned the piece for a requiem service on 14 February 1792 to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of his wife Anna at the age of 20 on 14 February 1791.
Great Mass in C minor, K. 427/417a, is the common name of the musical setting of the mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, which is considered one of his greatest works. He composed it in Vienna in 1782 and 1783, after his marriage, when he moved to Vienna from Salzburg. The large-scale work, a missa solemnis, is scored for two soprano soloists, a tenor and a bass, double chorus and large orchestra. It remained unfinished, missing large portions of the Credo and the complete Agnus Dei.
Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48, between 1887 and 1890. The choral-orchestral setting of the shortened Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin is the best-known of his large works. Its focus is on eternal rest and consolation. Fauré's reasons for composing the work are unclear, but do not appear to have had anything to do with the death of his parents in the mid-1880s. He composed the work in the late 1880s and revised it in the 1890s, finishing it in 1900.
The Armed Man is a Mass by Welsh composer Karl Jenkins, subtitled "A Mass for Peace". The piece was commissioned by the Royal Armouries Museum for the Millennium celebrations, to mark the museum's move from London to Leeds, and it was dedicated to victims of the Kosovo crisis. Like Benjamin Britten's War Requiem before it, it is essentially an anti-war piece and is based on the Catholic Mass, which Jenkins combines with other sources, principally the 15th-century folk song "L'homme armé" in the first and last movements. It was written for SATB chorus with soloists and a symphonic orchestra. Guy Wilson, then master of the museum, selected the texts for the mass.
The Grande Messe des morts, Op. 5, by Hector Berlioz was composed in 1837. The Grande Messe des Morts is one of Berlioz's best-known works, with a tremendous orchestration of woodwind and brass instruments, including four antiphonal offstage brass ensembles. The work derives its text from the traditional Latin Requiem Mass. It has a duration of approximately ninety minutes, although there are faster recordings of under seventy-five minutes.
The Requiem, Op. 9, is a 1947 setting of the Latin Requiem by Maurice Duruflé for a solo baritone, mezzo-soprano, mixed choir, and organ, or orchestra with organ. The thematic material is mostly taken from the Mass for the Dead in Gregorian chant. The Requiem was first published in 1948 by Durand in an organ version.
Paul Miles-Kingston, is a British singer who achieved fame as a boy soprano classical singer.
"Pie Jesu" 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.
Polish 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 the trade union leader Lech Wałęsa, was written for the unveiling of a statue at the Gdańsk Shipyard to commemorate those killed in the Polish anti-government riots in 1970. He expanded the work into a requiem, writing other parts to honour different patriotic events over the next four years.
John Rutter's Requiem is a musical setting of parts of the Latin Requiem with added psalms and biblical verses in English, completed in 1985. It is scored for soprano, mixed choir and orchestra or chamber ensemble.
Requiem is an instrumental musical composition by Hans Werner Henze, premiered in Cologne on 24 February 1993. It consists of nine sacred concertos for piano solo, trumpet and large chamber orchestra. About this piece, the composer has the following comments.
These nine instrumental pieces are concerned with the human fears and problems of our time, with illness and death, love and loneliness, and in particular with the character of Michael Vyner, an extremely lively and passionate man, his life and his death, and my grief at his loss which stands for the loss of so many others who have also tragically departed from our world. The spirit of this music can be explained by such facts and by our time, by which it seems to me to be strongly influenced, by its horrors and passions, its beauty and dynamics. The movements of the Requiem can be played separately or in any desired combination. Hans Werner Henze
Antonín Dvořák's Requiem in B♭ minor, Op. 89, B. 165, is a funeral Mass scored for soloists, choir and orchestra. It was composed in 1890 and performed for the first time on 9 October 1891, in Birmingham, England, with the composer conducting.
Giovanni Benedetto Platti was born possibly 9 July 1697 in Padua, then belonging to Venice. He was an Italian Baroque composer and oboist. He died 11 January 1763 in Würzburg.
The Requiem in C minor for mixed chorus was written by Luigi Cherubini in 1816 and premiered 21 January 1817 at a commemoration service for Louis XVI of France on the twenty-fourth anniversary of his beheading during the French Revolution.
Requiem for a Tribe Brother is a choral work by the Australian-born composer Malcolm Williamson.
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 from the Requiem with biblical texts from Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job. The composition was published by Hinshaw Music, including versions for smaller instrumental groups. It has been performed internationally.
The Messa da requiem in D minor (1835) is a musical setting of the Catholic funeral mass (Requiem) by Italian opera composer Gaetano Donizetti. It is scored for five soloists, mixed chorus and orchestra. A performance lasts about 62–75 minutes.
Duruflé: Complete Choral Works is the seventh release by the choral group Houston Chamber Choir performing the unabridged choral works of composer Maurice Duruflé. Conducted by Artistic Director Robert Simpson and performed by organist Ken Cowan, the project is their first to be released under the Signum Classics label. The album won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance.
Requiem is a setting of the Latin Mass for the dead for four soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ by Frank Martin. Composed in 1971 and 1972, it was premiered at Lausanne Cathedral on 4 May 1973, with the composer conducting the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. It has been described as the composer's masterpiece.