Requiem (Ockeghem)

Last updated • 3 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Requiem, by Johannes Ockeghem (c. 1410 – 1497), is a polyphonic setting of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass (the Missa pro defunctis, or Mass for the dead). It is probably the earliest surviving polyphonic setting of any requiem mass. It is unusual in that the movements vary greatly in style, and each uses a paraphrase technique for the original Sarum chant. It has five movements for two to four voices and is one of Ockeghem's best known and most performed works.

Contents

Ockeghem's Requiem is often considered incomplete as it lacks a Sanctus, Communion or Agnus Dei. The closing movement, the Offertory, is the most complex. Blank opening sections in the Codex imply that there may have been another movement. The circumstances of its composition are unclear; it may have been composed for the funeral of Charles VII in 1461; an alternative hypothesis is that it was written after the death of Louis XI in 1483.

Requiem

This requiem is the earliest surviving polyphonic setting of the Requiem Mass, as a possibly earlier setting by Guillaume Dufay, written for use by the Order of the Golden Fleece, has not survived. It remains one of Ockeghem's most famous and often-performed compositions. [1]

Ockeghem's Requiem is unusual compared both to his other works and to other settings of the requiem. Each of the movements uses a paraphrase technique for the original Sarum chant, something Ockeghem did rarely, and they are all very different from each other stylistically. The selection of movements is also unusual compared to other requiem masses.

It calls for four voices, and is in five parts:

  1. Introitus: Requiem aeternam
  2. Kyrie
  3. Graduale: Si ambulem
  4. Tractus: Sicut cervus desiderat
  5. Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe

Since it lacks a Sanctus, Communion or Agnus Dei, most scholars consider it incomplete. [2] It survives in only one manuscript source, the Chigi Codex. Since the document seems to have been intended as a complete collection of Ockeghem's music, [3] these movements were probably left out because they were either unavailable either to the copyist or not in a legible condition. Blank opening sections in the codex also imply that at least one other movement, probably a three-voice setting of the Communion in a more sedate style recalling the opening Introit, was originally intended to close the work. [4] Movements appear to be missing in two other masses transcribed in the codex as well, Ma maistresse and Fors seulement . [5]

The style of the Ockeghem Requiem is appropriately austere for a setting of the Mass for the Dead; indeed, the lack of polyphonic settings of the requiem until the late 15th century was probably due to the perception that polyphony was not sober enough for such a purpose. [6] Portions of the work, especially the opening Introit, are written in the treble-dominated style reminiscent of the first half of the 15th century, with the chant in the topmost voice (superius) and the accompanying voices singing mostly in parallel motion in a fauxbourdon-like manner. Within each movement there are subsections for two or three voices which provide contrast with the fuller four-voice textures that surround them and provide a sense of climax, a procedure typical of Ockeghem. [7]

The closing movement, the Offertory, is the most contrapuntally complex, and may have been intended as the climax of the entire composition. [4] [7]

Precise dating of the Requiem has not been possible. Richard Wexler proposed 1461, the year of Charles VII's death, a monarch to whom Ockeghem owed a debt of gratitude and for whom he would likely have composed a requiem. [8] If this date is correct, Ockeghem's Requiem could have predated the lost one of Dufay, the date of which is also speculative. Another possibility is that Ockeghem may have composed it instead for the death of Louis XI in 1483, or even towards the end of his own life; poet Guillaume Crétin alludes to the composition of a possibly recent requiem in his Déploration , written on the death of Ockeghem. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Requiem</span> Mass celebrated for the repose of deceased peoples souls

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead, is a Mass of the Catholic Church offered for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal. It is usually celebrated in the context of a funeral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass (music)</span> Form of sacred musical composition

The Mass is a form of sacred musical composition that sets the invariable portions of the Christian Eucharistic liturgy, known as the Mass.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Ockeghem</span> Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer (c. 1410–1497)

Johannes Ockeghem was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of early Renaissance music. Ockeghem was the most influential European composer in the period between Guillaume Du Fay and Josquin des Prez, and he was—with his colleague Antoine Busnois—the leading European composer in the second half of the 15th century. He was an important proponent of the early Franco-Flemish School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pierre de la Rue</span> Franco-Flemish composer (c1452–1518)

Pierre de la Rue was a Franco-Flemish composer and singer of the Renaissance. His name also appears as Piersson or variants of Pierchon and his toponymic, when present, as various forms of de Platea, de Robore, or de Vico. A member of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, and a long associate of the Habsburg-Burgundian musical chapel, he ranks with Agricola, Brumel, Compère, Isaac, Obrecht, and Weerbeke as one of the most famous and influential composers in the Netherlands polyphonic style in the decades around 1500.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loyset Compère</span> Franco-Flemish Renaissance composer

Loyset Compère was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. Of the same generation as Josquin des Prez, he was one of the most significant composers of motets and chansons of that era, and one of the first musicians to bring the light Italianate Renaissance style to France.

<i>Officium Defunctorum</i> (Victoria)

Officium Defunctorum is a musical setting of the Office of the Dead composed by the Spanish Renaissance composer Tomás Luis de Victoria in 1603. The texts have also been set by other composers including Morales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Requiem (Berlioz)</span>

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.

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.

In Renaissance music, the cyclic mass was a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Roman Catholic Mass, in which each of the movements – Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei – shared a common musical theme, commonly a cantus firmus, thus making it a unified whole. The cyclic mass was the first multi-movement form in western music to be subject to a single organizing principle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missa brevis</span> Form of mass

Missa brevis usually refers to a mass composition that is short because part of the text of the Mass ordinary that is usually set to music in a full mass is left out, or because its execution time is relatively short.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Requiem (Duruflé)</span>

The Requiem, Op. 9, is a 1947 setting of the Latin Requiem by Maurice Duruflé for a solo voice, 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.

The Tournai Mass is a polyphonic setting of the mass from 14th-century France. It is preserved in a manuscript from the library of the Tournai Cathedral.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Requiem (Rutter)</span>

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.

<i>Missa Caput</i> Musical setting of the mass

The Missa Caput was a musical setting of the Roman Catholic mass, dating from the 1440s, by an anonymous English composer. It circulated widely on the European continent in the mid-15th century and was one of the best-loved musical works of the early Renaissance in Europe, judging by the number of copies that have survived, and the number of imitations it inspired. It was influential both for its use of a tenor cantus firmus which unified all the movements and for being the first extended composition with a freely composed bass line, a feature with extraordinary ramifications in music history. Among the many composers influenced by it are Guillaume Du Fay and Johannes Ockeghem.

<i>Missa de Beata Virgine</i> (Josquin)

The Missa de Beata Virgine is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass, by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. Though formerly believed to have been a late composition due to stylistic reasons, evidence from Burchard’s Diary proves that the mass was written sometime before September 23, 1497. It was the most popular of his masses in the 16th century.

The Missa Sine nomine is a setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Renaissance composer Josquin des Prez. It is a work of his maturity, probably dating from the period after he returned to Condé-sur-l'Escaut in 1504. It is one of Josquin's only masses not to be based on pre-existing material, and like the Missa ad fugam, it is a canonic mass.

<i>Missa prolationum</i> Mass setting by Johannes Ockeghem

The Missa prolationum is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Johannes Ockeghem, dating from the second half of the 15th century. Based on freely written material probably composed by Ockeghem himself, and consisting entirely of mensuration canons, it has been called "perhaps the most extraordinary contrapuntal achievement of the fifteenth century", and was possibly the first multi-part work written with a unifying canonic principle for all its movements.

Requiem for a Tribe Brother is a choral work by the Australian-born composer Malcolm Williamson.

The Music for the Requiem Mass is any music that accompanies the Requiem, a Mass in the Catholic Church for the deceased. It has inspired a large number of compositions, including settings by Mozart, Berlioz, Donizetti, Verdi, Bruckner, Dvořák, Fauré and Duruflé. Originally, such compositions were meant to be performed in liturgical service, with monophonic chant. Eventually the dramatic character of the text began to appeal to composers to an extent that they made the requiem a genre of its own, and the compositions of composers such as Verdi are essentially concert pieces rather than liturgical works.

The Missa Gaudeamus is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass by Franco-Flemish composer Josquin des Prez, probably composed in the early or middle 1480s, and published in 1502. It is based on the gregorian introit Gaudeamus Omnes and its setting is for four voices.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Fitch, p. 195.
  2. ↑ Fitch, Grove online
  3. ↑ Fitch, p. 210-211
  4. 1 2 Fitch, p. 201
  5. ↑ Fitch, p. 210-211.
  6. ↑ Brüser
  7. 1 2 Perkins, Grove
  8. ↑ Wexler
  9. ↑ Fitch, p. 204
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.