I wrote last week about the constraints Mozart worked with as he composed the Requiem. Starting with this post I’ll look at the text of the various sections, as many as I can squeeze in, and perhaps an attempt at times to draw a connection between the words and the music.
(And why “mass”? That word, used as a general term for the main services in the Roman Catholic and other liturgical churches, is commonly said to be derived from the ending statement in Latin by the priest: “Ite, missa est”–”Go, the dismissal is made.” Missa=Mass. I guess that makes sense. There are other theories, but this one is the simplest, so we’ll go with that.) The overall set of texts has existed in some form since the 7th century, when it was first formalized by St. Gregory, but it has gone through numerous changes since then. The form of the requiem mass is simply the regular service with some changes, which include the removal of certain joyful passages and the addition of those concerning death and last things.
Let’s take a look at the first section of Mozart’s composition, which is a combination of the first two texts of the mass, the Introit (introduction) and the Kyrie (from a Greek word meaning “lord” or “master,” used here as a reference to God). There’s a lot of theology packed in here, so I can’t get too detailed, but here goes:
There are two requests made at the start of the Introit: that eternal rest and perpetual light be given to the blessed. “Rest” here would probably be well described as peace, a concept repeated requently throughout the Bible: “the peace of God.” There are also frequent references to light as an attribute of God and of Heaven. What is the first product of Creation listed in Genesis chapter 1? Light: “And God said, ‘Let there be light, and there was light.’” How is God described? “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5 KJV). We are told in the last chapter of the last book of the Chrisstian New Testament, the Book of Revelation, that in Heaven there is no night: “And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light” (Rev. 22:5 KJV). So, it’s a pretty biblical request that the dead who die in the Lord be bathed in light.
The next section of the Introit refers to the book of Psalms, chapter 65, which describes the praise and vows due to God and the fact that all “flesh” (“caro”), that is, all people, will come to Him. This is only the first time that the text will mention Zion and Jerusalem, as well as David and Abraham, places and characters drawn from the Jewish Bible. More on that in a future post. The Introit ends with a repetition of the beginning words.
So here’s what we have so far:
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
A hymn, O God, becometh Thee in Zion, and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem;
O Lord, hear my prayer, all flesh shall come to Thee.
Eternal rest give to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
We then move on to the Kyrie, the text of which is etremely simple:
Lord have mercy on us,
Christ have mercy on us.
Lord have mercy on us.
Mozart takes these two simple prayers and weaves them into “a stunning double fugue that symbolically fuses a stern, noble subject for Kyrie eleison with a more humanized one for Christe eleison” (http://www.classicalnotes.net/classics/mozartrequiem.html). In other words, Mozart uses different musical styles to depict God the Father and Christ the Son, perhaps seeing one as judge and one as savior. We will see several fugues in the Requiem, so I will just say for now that this construction is made up of interweaving themes, with voices entering at different points. J. S. Bach is usually thought of as the master of the fugue, so it may seem a little jarring to think of Mozart’s writing them, but he greatly admired Bach and isn’t all that removed from him chonologically. Bach died in 1750; Mozart was born in 1756. He apparently discovered the music of Bach and Handel around 1780 and wrote his great Mass in C Minor using elements of their style. So it’s not surprising that fugues show up in the Requiem.
Perhaps that’s enough textual criticism for now. Come back next week as I continue delving into the riches of this masterpiece.
