Musikalishe Exequien

Next up: Monteverdi, Gabrieli, Schein, and Schütz with Back Bay Chorale, including my perennial favorite, Schütz’ Musikalische Exequien! Read more below and then come hear the concert on Saturday night!

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Musikalische Exequien (Funeral music), Op. 7, SWV 279–281 is a sacred composition by Heinrich Schütz, dating from c. 1635/36. Written for the funeral services of Count Henry II, Count of Reuss-Gera, who had died on 3 December 1635, it is Schütz's most famous work of funeral music.[1] It comprises the following sections:

Henry II had planned the service himself and chosen the texts, some of which are scriptural and others of which are from 16th-century Lutheran writers, including Martin Luther himself. He also commissioned Schütz to compose the music on the occasion of his death.

Part I, by far the longest part of the work, is scored for SSATTB (2 sopranos, alto, 2 tenors, bass) chorus alternating with small ensembles of soloists. Part II is scored for double choir SATB SATB, and part III for SATTB choir and a trio of soloists. All movements are accompanied by basso continuo.

Musikalische Exequien (Funeral music), Op. 7, SWV 279-281 is a sacred composition by Heinrich Schütz, dating from c. 1635/36. Written for the funeral services of Count Henry II, Count of Reuss-Gera, who had died on 3 December 1635, it is Schütz's most famous work of funeral music.

Music for the Requiem

With Halloween and the commemorations of All Souls and All Saints later this week, Early Music Monday looks at the music for the Requiem, frequently performed in concerts, at Christian funerals, and used for dramatic moments in movies!

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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, 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 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

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, Verdi, Bruckner, Dvořák, Fauré and Duruflé. Originally, such compositions were meant to be performed in liturgical service, with monophonic chant.

Dies Irae and the Sibyls

“Dies irae, dies illa… teste David cum Sibylla.”
Day of wrath, that day, … as David witnessed with the Sibyl.
Wait … who exactly was this Sibyl? And why does she show up in the Requiem mass but not anywhere else in scripture or the liturgy? Early Music Monday continues with part 2 of Sacred or Secular this week!

The sibyls were oracles in Ancient Greece. The earliest sibyls, according to legend,[1] prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity; originally at Delphi and Pessinos. In Late Antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.

The English word sibyl (/ˈsɪbəl/ or /ˈsɪbɪl/) comes — via the Old French sibile and the Latin sibylla — from the ancient Greek Σίβυλλα (Sibulla).[2] Varro derived the name from theobule ("divine counsel"), but modern philologists mostly propose an Old Italic[3] or alternatively a Semitic etymology.[4]

The first known Greek writer to mention a sibyl is Heraclitus, in the 5th century BC:

The sibyls were oracles in Ancient Greece. The earliest sibyls, according to legend, prophesied at holy sites. Their prophecies were influenced by divine inspiration from a deity; originally at Delphi and Pessinos. In Late Antiquity, various writers attested to the existence of sibyls in Greece, Italy, the Levant, and Asia Minor.

Dies Irae

It’s Requiem season, so this week’s Early Music Monday takes a peek at the Dies Irae chant. Not only is it one of the most frequently used melodies in all of western classical music, the text walks a very fine line between sacred scripture and pagan imagery… but more about that next week!

Dies irae (Ecclesiastical Latin: [ˈdi.es ˈire]; "the Day of Wrath") is a Latin sequence attributed to either Thomas of Celano of the Franciscans (1200 – c. 1265)[1] or to Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1294), lector at the Dominican studium at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome.[2] The sequence dates from at least the thirteenth century, though it is possible that it is much older, with some sources ascribing its origin to St. Gregory the Great (d. 604), Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), or Bonaventure (1221–1274).[1]

It is a Medieval Latin poem characterized by its accentual stress and rhymed lines. The metre is trochaic. The poem describes the Last Judgment, trumpet summoning souls before the throne of God, where the saved will be delivered and the unsaved cast into eternal flames.

It is best known from its use in the Requiem (Mass for the Dead or Funeral Mass). An English version is found in various Anglican Communion service books.

Dies irae (Ecclesiastical Latin: ; "the Day of Wrath") is a Latin sequence attributed to either Thomas of Celano of the Franciscans (1200 - c. 1265) or to Latino Malabranca Orsini (d. 1294), lector at the Dominican studium at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Angelicum in Rome.