Requiem for a Tribe Brother is a choral work by the Australian-born composer Malcolm Williamson. [1]
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, AO, CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.
Lasting approximately 30 minutes, the Requiem for a Tribe Brother is one of Williamson's largest unaccompanied choral works, standing alongside the Symphony for Voices of 1962 and the Mass of Saint Etheldreda of 1990 in duration. Williamson divides up the extensive text of the traditional Requiem Mass into ten movements, as follows:
A brooding chant-like refrain for male voices, simulating the drone of a didgeridoo, alternates with homophonic passages for full choir.
The didgeridoo is a wind instrument. The didgeridoo was developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia, likely within the last 1,500 years and is now in use around the world. It is a wooden trumpet "drone pipe" classified by Musicologists as a brass aerophone.
A tender 3-minute chorale with a harmonic palette which is neither diatonic nor chromatic. This is typical of Williamson, as is consistent throughout the Requiem.
Chorale is the name of several related musical forms originating in the music genre of the Lutheran chorale:
In music, harmony is the process by which the composition of individual sounds, or superpositions of sounds, is analysed by hearing. Usually, this means simultaneously occurring frequencies, pitches, or chords.
Much in the manner of the opening Requiem aeternam, passages for soloists are contrasted with densely harmonised sections for the full choir. At nearly 5 minutes, this is the largest and most varied movement of the work.
Highly operatic solos for tenor and alto are pitted against a richly coloured chordal backdrop for full choir.
Opera is a form of theatre in which music has a leading role and the parts are taken by singers, but is distinct from musical theater. Such a "work" is typically a collaboration between a composer and a librettist and incorporates a number of the performing arts, such as acting, scenery, costume, and sometimes dance or ballet. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble, which since the early 19th century has been led by a conductor.
A tenor is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is one of the highest of the male voice types. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The low extreme for tenors is roughly A♭2 (two A♭s below middle C). At the highest extreme, some tenors can sing up to the second F above middle C (F5). The tenor voice type is generally divided into the leggero tenor, lyric tenor, spinto tenor, dramatic tenor, heldentenor, and tenor buffo or spieltenor.
The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian, historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In 4-part voice leading alto is the second highest part, sung in choruses by either low women's or high men's voices. In vocal classification these are usually called contralto and male alto or countertenor.
After a grand and imposing statement of "Sanctus ... etc.", there is a lively dance-like coda in 5/8 metre on the word "Hosanna".
A mysterious introduction is followed by a reprise of the "Hosannas" from the previous movement.
In common with the second movement, the Agnus Dei is a slow chorale, featuring a highly pungent harmonic language and many unusual shifts of key.
In musical notation, a key signature is a set of sharp, flat, and rarely, natural symbols placed together on the staff. Key signatures are generally written immediately after the clef at the beginning of a line of musical notation, although they can appear in other parts of a score, notably after a double barline.
This movement features two soprano soli which float above the rest of the choir throughout.
A fast and fiery dance primarily for tenors, built on an ostinato figure in the basses. Towards the end of the movement, there is a brief reprise of material from the opening Requiem aeternam.
The serene concluding movement, in C major, derives its melody from the opening of the Song of Hope from Williamson's choral-symphony for Kath Walker, The Dawn Is At Hand (1987–89). [2]
The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
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, an Italian poet and novelist whom Verdi admired. The first performance, at the San Marco church in Milan on 22 May 1874, marked the first anniversary of Manzoni's death. The work was at one time called the Manzoni Requiem. It is rarely performed in liturgy, but rather in concert form of around 85–90 minutes in length. Musicologist David Rosen calls it 'probably the most frequently performed major choral work composed since the compilation of Mozart's Requiem'.
The Missa solemnis in D major, Op. 123, is a solemn mass composed by Ludwig van Beethoven from 1819 to 1823. It was first performed on 7 April 1824 in Saint Petersburg, Russia, under the auspices of Beethoven's patron Prince Nikolai Galitzin; an incomplete performance was given in Vienna on 7 May 1824, when the Kyrie, Credo, and Agnus Dei were conducted by the composer. It is generally considered one of the composer's supreme achievements and, along with Bach's Mass in B minor, one of the most significant Mass settings of the common practice period.
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 commissioned the piece for a Requiem service to commemorate the anniversary of his wife's death on 14 February.
Great Mass in C minor, K. 427/417a, is the common name of the musical setting of the mass by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and 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. This 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 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.
The Requiem, Op. 9, is a 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.
Michael McGlynn is an Irish composer, producer, director, and founder of the vocal ensemble Anúna.
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. The Polish Requiem was first performed in Stuttgart on 28 September 1984. Penderecki revised and expanded the work in 1993, and expanded it again in 2005 with the additional movement, Ciaccona. It is called Polish Requiem because its parts are dedicated to heroes and victims of Polish history. One of the better-known works by Penderecki, the mass largely follows the liturgical Latin of the requiem format with the addition of Święty Boże, the Polish translation of the Trisagion.
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.
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.
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-third anniversary of his beheading during the French Revolution.
The Requiem in D minor, WAB 39, is a Missa pro defunctis composed by Anton Bruckner in 1849.
The Mass No. 1 in D minor, WAB 26 by Anton Bruckner, is a setting of the Mass ordinary for soloists, mixed choir and orchestra, and organ.
St. Cecilia Mass is the common name of a solemn mass in G major by Charles Gounod, composed in 1855 and scored for three soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ. The official name is Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile, in homage of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. The work was assigned CG 56 in the catalogue of the composer's works.
Missa L'Homme armé is a part of a mass by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina. It was published in 1570 and consists of four movements.
This article lists some of the modern completions of the Requiem by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
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.
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