Messa da Requiem

Requiem and Kyrie

Sequence (Dies Irae)

Offertory (Domine Jesu)

Sanctus

Agnus Dei

Lux aeterna

Libera me

“I am not fond of useless things,” Verdi wrote to an admirer in 1871. “There are so many, many Masses for the Dead. It would be pointless to add one more.”

But he was tempted. Three years earlier, having written scarcely a note of sacred music before, Verdi had been moved by the death of Rossini to collaborate with eleven other Italian composers on a jointly written Requiem to honour the memory of their late colleague. Verdi’s contribution was a setting of the Libera me – a text which is not normally included in the Requiem but which is particularly valuable to a composer with symphonic ambitions in that it not only comes last but also refers back to earlier sections of the Mass and so justifies a certain amount of recapitulation. As Verdi wrote to that same admirer, whose extravagant praise of the Libera me tempted the composer to contemplate incorporating it in a full-scale Requiem of his own, “I would find, with a little further expansion, that I had already completed the Requiem aeternam and the Dies Irae whose recapitulation I have already composed in the Libera me . . . But it is a temptation that will pass, like many others.”

It is highly unlikely that Verdi – for whom God, he said, was Shakespeare and Manzoni the only saint in the calendar – would have written a Mass without a very special reason, although a Requiem was more likely than the ordinary Mass. The Mass for the Dead excludes the Credo, which is an awkward subject even for a composer who can subscribe to it, and it includes the medieval verses of the Dies Irae, which is a potent source of dramatic inspiration. Even so, while he was disappointed that the joint-effort Rossini Requiem did not get performed as planned (it was first heard in Stuttgart in 1988), Verdi was reconciled to leaving the potential of his Libera me unfulfilled.

What made him change his mind was the death in 1873 of that one saint in his calendar, Alessendro Manzoni, adored author of I Promessi Sposi and great Italian patriot who shared many of Verdi’s most cherished political ideals. Within days of that event the profoundly moved composer had promised the Mayor and Council of Milan that he would have a Requiem ready for the first anniversary of the death of the city’s greatest son. Verdi himself decided on the Church of San Marco as the ideal place for the first performance, which duly took place under his own direction with his own chosen soloists, a chorus of 120 voices and 100 instrumentalists in the orchestra.

Requiem & Kyrie

Although the Dies Irae is obviously the most theatrical element in Verdi’s Requiem, it is by no means the only one. The hushed opening, for example, with its whispered monotones in the chorus, is not so much a congregation at prayer as an opera composer’s atmospheric simulation of one. It is not cheaply done, however: the choral monotone is integrated into the score as one of its most significant features. A still more significant feature is the chromatic downward curving melody which is introduced by violin over the words dona eis, Domine and which is a formative image of the expressive character of much of the work. Vigorous passages of unaccompanied counterpoint like the Te decet hymnus chorus are comparatively rare. Where there is an upward-reaching melody, like the main theme of the elaborately developed Kyrie eleison, it tends to be contradicted by some such drooping line as the bassoon and cello counterpoint to the opening tenor solo.

Sequence

The longest and surely the most remarkable movement of all is the Dies Irae Sequence. Of the nineteen three-line verses of Thomas of Celano’s hymn, as many as ten of them inspire a new musical departure, each one marked by a change of tempo or change of key or both. To counteract the expressive diversity and to keep the structure under control, Verdi twice recalls his apocalyptic setting of the opening lines, Dies Irae, dies illa, the second time with the shattering G minor chords and choral wails of terror with which the movement opens.

Verdi’s response to the text might be an acoustic inspiration – like, at one extreme, the sensational brass fanfare (with four off-stage trumpets) which introduce the Tuba mirum and, at the other extreme, the stunned strings and the dull thud of pizzicato basses and quietly struck bass drum accompanying the short bass solo, Mors stupebit. Or it might be an operatic inspiration, like Liber scriptus, a dramatic scena for mezzo soloist punctuated by choral monotones leading into the first recall of Dies irae, dies illa. Quid sum miser features a bassoon obbligato as eloquent as the words uttered by the trio of soprano, mezzo, and tenor soloists. Rex tremendae is basically a study in the contrast between, on the one hand, the might of bass voices and lower wind and strings proclaiming the King of dread majesty and, on the other, the vulnerability of solo voice and higher woodwind appealing for salvation – although the two elements are most powerfully combined in a central climax.

A beautifully writen duet for soprano and mezzo soloists, Recordare, is followed by a frankly operatic aria for tenor, Ingemisco, and another dramatic scena in which the bass soloist covers the expressive range between the defiance of Confutatis maledictis and the contrition of Oro supplex. The second recall of Dies irae, dies illa leaves only sorrow – the Lacrymosa beginning with a mezzo solo in B flat minor but then involving all the vocal forces in an ensemble of arching lines and sobbing harmonies – and a prayer for rest, ending quietly but not hopelessly in B flat major.

Offertory & Sanctus

The first two movements were open-ended in construction. The next two, both of which end in the key in which they begin, are complete in themselves. The Offertory, which excludes the chorus, is a neatly shaped palindrome: a fervent solo quartet, Hostias et preces tibi, is at the centre with a short four-part fugue, Quam olim Abrahae, on each side of it. Part of the tenderly expressed opening section is repeated at the end. The Sanctus, which excludes the soloists, begins as a brilliant double fugue for double chorus and, though the textural complexity is not sustained, the virtuoso inspiration certainly is.

Agnus Dei & Lux Aeterna

The Agnus Dei is as daring as it is simple. The soprano and mezzo soloists sing in octaves almost to the end, where they meet in unison. They are unaccompanied at first, and when the chorus and orchestra make their entry they are all in octaves too. Developments in harmony, texture, and colour are restrained throughout. The comparatively sophisticated Lux aeterna, with the bass soloist’s priestly interventions and eerie trombone harmonies in B flat minor, is a reminder that the last opera Verdi completed before the Requiem was Aida. It ends, however, in an appropriately radiant B flat major.

Libera me

Though written five years earlier, and for a different purpose, the Libera me – much extended by now – is so well integrated into the Manzoni Requiem that it seems it could never have had any other purpose than to conclude this particular work. The opening soprano solo is uttered in dread of a renewed assault from the Dies irae material, which does indeed crash in on her quietly exposed apprehension with one last but still shattering prophecy of divine judgement. To exorcise the fear it takes a recapitulation of the opening prayer for eternal rest – the Requiem aeternam, now transferred to the solo soprano accompanied only by the chorus – a persecuted fugue, and a final massively expressed appeal for deliverance with the soprano rising to a dramatically sustained top C. The work ends on a scarcely confident whispered monotone in C major.

Gerald Larner © 2007