Requiem Mass
  • 16davids
    Posts: 3
    I have three questions pertaining to the music of the Requiem Mass that I could use help with.

    1. Who wrote the Requiem Mass that is found in the 1962 Liber Usualis
    2. Where can I get music of the Requiem Mass in modern notation.
    3. What is the time signature for the music in the Requiem Mass.

    My last two questions are probably the main ones as I am composing them using a music composition software called "Muse Score" and would like to get them composed for Organ by May or June. Thank you for reading this.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Well I can answer numbers two and three. You can find modern notation for it in the Bragers Kyriale. In the BK there is no time signature.
  • 16davids
    Posts: 3
    Thank you! I started composing the "Subvenite" and I could use the time signatire!
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    16d: Chant is not metered. Chant is text-centric; the text drives the music, the rhythm, the phrases.
  • G
    Posts: 1,400
    16davids, is it possible that you don't mean "compose" but type-set or transcribe?

    And there are entire Libers printed in modern notation, don't think any are available online.

    I imagine there is no one person, maybe not even one community or monastery responsible for the composition of the melodies of the Gregorian Requiem, and it's lost in the mists of time.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • mrcoppermrcopper
    Posts: 653
    I expect MuseScore is bar-oriented, so needs a meter in order to allow input? If so, just keep changing the meter as needed, and hopefully you'll be able to hide the meter marks later when you are done.
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    The Liber Usualis is online in modern notation:
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2013/mar/19/1924-liber-usualis-modern-notation-solesmes/
  • CGM
    Posts: 699
    The Requiem Mass is pp. 114-118 of Vol. 3.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    In case it would be useful for your situation: there are some existing organ accompaniments for the Requiem Mass, for example in volume 5 of the "Nova Organi Harmonia" set:
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2013/aug/17/nova-organi-harmonia/


  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    If you're interested in the rhythm of the earliest notated versions of the Requiem chants (rather than the 19th century reconstructions mentioned above), check out this recording by my chant ensemble Euouae, which also features polyphonic settings of parts of the Mass for the Dead.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen irishtenor Penny
  • 16davids
    Posts: 3
    So I got out my trumpet today and got out my sheet music that has the requiem Aeternam from (http://media.musicasacra.com/books/chantsofchurch_modern.pdf), and just to see if I could play it on my trumpet, I started to play it and long behold, it was PERFECT!
  • Simon
    Posts: 158
    As to the composer of the music of the requiem mass - probably the prolific Anonymous. The chant melody for In Paradisum (actually two antiphons) is listed (the first one) in Hartker's Antiphonale, for example (+980 AD). Evidence for an office for a monthly commemoration of the dead goes back at least to the 8th century in the Benedictine Abbey of Fulda. I would think a Requiem mass (and its Gregorian melodies) to be of even earlier origin. (I'll check further this evening after work and consult a few reference works I have at home). The earliest surviving polyphonic setting (based on the Gregorian melodies) is of Johannes Ockeghem (1460).
  • Cantus67Cantus67
    Posts: 208
    IF it helps you're most welcome to use my newest edition as a reference. In fact anyone is welcome to use it for their liturgies. All we ever ask is that people leave the recognizto (creative commons) on the bottom of the first and last page.
    34 - Requiem w CC.pdf
    247K
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
Add a Comment