RequiemTubes
W. A. Mozart
- Introitus and Kyrie as usual, Mozart gets the ball rolling. The opening to every other Requiem is just a variant on this.
- Confutatis and Lacrimosa a moment of Mozart infusing his usual sublime grandeur with a little Beethovenian toughness. (If only Beethoven wrote a Requiem!)
Hector Berlioz
- His entire requiem in a convenient YouTube playlist. A sprawling, massive work scored for an orchestra of about 1,393,402 instruments and singers. This is a great recording of Bernstein conducting it at Les Invalides in Paris.
Johannes Brahms
- His German Requiem is notable for eschewing the Latin (Catholic) text in favor of selections from the Luther Bible. The selected texts focus more on the act of mourning than on Christian doctrine, and the impending judgment of the Dies Irae. My favorite movement is here with a cool subtitled translation.
Gabriel Fauré
- Sanctus gorgeous, consummately French Romantic stuff, you can hear how this style will mutate into the ethereal stuff (à la Satie) that follows a few decades later.
- Pie Jesu the finest movement Fauré ever wrote of anything?
Benjamin Britten
- Libera Me from his non-liturgical War Requiem (debuted in 1962) which combines the traditional Latin text with settings of Wilfred Owen’s WWI-inspired poems. This movement is almost a half-hour long, but don’t miss Britten’s heart-stopping setting of the poem “Strange Meeting” in the second part.
György Ligeti
- Sections of “Kyrie” and “Dies Irae” set to images from 2001: A Space Odyssey. For fans of horror movie soundtracks gone high-art
(these are just the Requiems I am most familiar with. There are way more)
