Favourite Requiem Mass?
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Instead of the smell of napalm in the morning ala Apocalypse Now, there's nothing like a good Michael Haydn Requiem. As much as I esteem his older brother, I believe Micheal could be somewhat warmer in sound. But both were terrific as treasures of the Classical era and I consider Michael as underrated and deserving of being heard more instead of usually being viewed in his brother's shadow. Unfortunately, it didn't help his reputation that he was known for being a heavy drinker and was criticized by Leopold Mozart. Nevertheless, I find something deeply sincere in his liturgical works, some of which inspired his friend Mozart's great Requiem.
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Requiem in d-Moll für Soli, Chor und Orchester (1855) - Franz von Suppé
Marie Fajtova, Marie Fajtova, Franziska Gottwald, Franziska Gottwald, Tomislav Musek, Tomislav Musek, Albert Pesendorfer, Albert Pesendorfer, Munich Philharmonic Chorus, Munich Philharmonic Chorus
Album
Sacred Masterpieces Stuttgart Gachinger Kantorei, Stuttgart Bach Collegium, Rilling
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I'd say Ligeti, Berlioz, Fauré
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Wonderful! Can't believe this name hasn't been thrown around more often. At least the video has a fair number of views
I fully agree - this work is a miracle and captures me like hardly any other!!!
My favourites:
- Mozart
- this one
- Brahms
- Cherubini Requiems in c- and in d-
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by far:
1.mozart
2.brahms
3.verdi
4.faure
5.dvorak
1.mozart
2.brahms
3.verdi
4.faure
5.dvorak
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Leopold Mozart at first had a positive attitude toward his colleague, praising his competence, but when Michael obtained posts Leopold wanted for his own son, Leopold started getting antagonistic toward Michael, criticizing Michael as a "lazy drunkard". While there may have been some truth to this (Michael was prone to heavy drinking, and he was reportedly under influence of alcohol while playing the organ during high mass), it's also possible Leopold was exaggerating, born out of his antagonism for Michael.
Some say that Leopold Mozart, as the chief organizer of music at the Salzburg cathedral, made sure that, instead of Michael, Wolfgang got all the important commissions, and this is probably why Michael didn't compose much during the periods 1773 (the Mozarts came back from their Italian trip) ~ 1778 (Wolfgang left for Paris), and 1779 (Wolfgang came back from Paris) ~ 1781 (Wolfgang quitted his job in Salzburg and left for Vienna).
"Johann Michael Haydn's Requiem in C minor heavily influenced W. A. Mozart's Requiem. In just two weeks Michael Haydn composed his work in December 1771, on the occasion of the death of his employer, Prince Bishop Sigismund Count Schrattenbach, who was beloved among the people and was a great patron of the arts. The work was written under the impression of personal tragedy: Haydn's only child, Aloisia Josepha, died in January 1771, before completing her first year of life. Parts of the Schrattenbach-Requiem were played together with the completed movements from his second, unfinished Requiem during his own furneral service. During the funeral service in Vienna for Joseph Haydn, parts of his younger brother's C-minor Requiem were also performed."
This is how I see the formal layout:
Requiem in C Minor, MH 155 (1771)
"trumpet signal" & requiem 1st theme: [ 0:20 ]
requiem 2nd theme: [ 3:20 ~ 3:45 ]
lacrimosa theme: [ 11:40 ~ 11:48 ]
chromatic fourth theme (climbing from D to G in the bassline): [ 12:40 ~ 12:50 ]
hosanna theme (lacrimosa theme transformed/recapitulated): [ 24:21 ~ 24:29 ]
"trumpet signal": [ 26:48 , 27:56 ]
chromatic fourth theme recapitulated (climbing from G to C in the soprano solo): [ 28:40 ~ 28:50 ]
cum sanctis tuis fugue: [ 29:17 ~ 31:16 ]
requiem 2nd theme recapitulated: [ 31:22 ~ 31:50 ]
requiem 1st theme recapitulated: [ 31:58 ~ 32:30 ]
cum sanctis tuis fugue recapitulated: [ 32:38 ~ 34:30 ]
I think Michael's work is overlooked by many; the tradition of the M.Haydn/W.A.Mozart requiems heavily influenced composers like Bruckner. (Schubert was especially fond of M. Haydn; he visited M. Haydn's grave to gain inspiration for writing liturgical music.)
Bruckner Requiem in D Minor, WAB 39
"There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
[There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
[Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius."
There's also another requiem (which Michael wrote shortly before his death; largely unfinished) that's more conciliatory in mood and anticipates Schubert and Brahms:
I agree. But how is Josquin's Missa Pange Lingua a Requiem Mass? Isn't it a Marian work?
Speaking of which, one of my favorites is a six part Requiem mass in memory of Josquin, by his student Jean Richafort,
Requiem in memoriam Josquin Desprez:
Another top recording of this work is by Cinqucento, but it isn't on You Tube: https://www.amazon.com/Richafort-Requiem-other-sacred-music/dp/B008B3P4FO
My other favorite Requiems would include the following,
Johannes Ockeghem:
Johannes Prioris:
Pierre de La Rue:
Antoine Brumel:
Francisco Guerrero:
Tomas Luis de la Victoria:
Cristobal Morales:
Manuel Cardoso:
Eustache du Caurroy:
Marc-Antoine Charpentier:
And among later Requiems,
W.A. Mozart
Michael Haydn
Johannes Brahms
Guiseppe Verdi
Gabriel Faure:
Maurice Duruflé:
Ildebrando Pizzetti:
Speaking of which, one of my favorites is a six part Requiem mass in memory of Josquin, by his student Jean Richafort,
Requiem in memoriam Josquin Desprez:
My other favorite Requiems would include the following,
Johannes Ockeghem:
Johannes Prioris:
Pierre de La Rue:
Francisco Guerrero:
Tomas Luis de la Victoria:
Cristobal Morales:
Eustache du Caurroy:
And among later Requiems,
W.A. Mozart
Michael Haydn
Johannes Brahms
Guiseppe Verdi
Gabriel Faure:
Maurice Duruflé:
Ildebrando Pizzetti:
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"Georg Robert von Pasterwitz (7 June 1730 - 26 January 1803) was an Austrian composer and teacher. He was born in Bierhütten, near Passau. First educated at Niederaltaich, he entered the Benedictine monastery in Kremsmünster in 1749. He then enrolled at the University of Salzburg, studying theology, law and mathematics. It was during this time that he met Johann Ernst Eberlin, who became his music teacher. Pasterwitz completed his studies in 1759 and soon started teaching philosophy at the monastery's Ritterakademie, eventually rising to teach courses in mathematics, physics, economics, and political science; since about 1755 he was also active as composer, producing stage works for the monastery almost every year.
Between 1767 and 1783 Pasterwitz served as the monastery's choir director. Due to reforms started by Joseph II, he had to give up some of his duties and became instead the monastery's treasurer and eventually official representative, when it was threatened with dissolution in 1785. Pasterwitz died in 1803 in Kremsmünster, having served as dean of the Upper School there until 1801. Pasterwitz's surviving oeuvre comprises some 500 works, mostly liturgical pieces and dramatic works for the church. He composed a large number of short contrapuntal pieces for keyboard: 324 were published between 1790 and 1803, and were the only works published during the composer's lifetime. They show him as a competent master of both counterpoint and the keyboard. For the monastery, Pasterwitz regularly composed dramas and dozens of liturgical pieces: masses, offertories, vespers, etc."
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"Richard Wetz was a German late Romantic composer best known for his three symphonies. In these works, he "seems to have aimed to be an immediate continuation of Bruckner, as a result of which he actually ended up on the margin of music history"."
I'll also add Bruckner's to the list
"The Requiem is most likely Bruckner's "first truly large-scale composition and probably his first significant work." "[It] is amazing what he achieved, especially if we look at the great double fugue of the Quam olim Abrahae, written at least six years before he even commenced his thorough contrapuntal studies with Simon Sechter!" "The Requiem was Bruckner's first larger-scale composition and also his first work with orchestra. [When reviewing it in 1892,] as a highly self-critical seventy-year-old, Bruckner passed judgement on the work as follows: Es is' net schlecht! ('It is not bad!')."
There is clear influence of Mozart throughout the work.
[There] are many passages reminiscent of what was even then, in 1848/49, a past age (the very opening points irresistibly to Mozart's Requiem in the same key), and though the very inclusion of a figured bass for organ continuo strikes one as backward looking, there are already several flashes of the later, great Bruckner to come.
[Despite it] is by no means a perfect masterpiece... [it] can be said to be the first full demonstration that the young man was a composer of inestimable promise. ... [The] expressively reticent opening of the opening of the Requiem, with his softly shifting syncopations in the strings ... already faintly anticipates one or two of his own symphonic passages in the two earlier D minor symphonies, for instance Nos. '0' and 3... [We] cannot escape the solemn beauty of this music, which already has the authentic atmosphere of natural genius."
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