University of Montana ScholarWorks at University of Montana Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers Graduate School 2001 New sounds of mourning| The changing role of the Requiem in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as demonstrated by the works of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten Brian Edward Ward The University of Montana Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd Let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Recommended Citation Ward, Brian Edward, "New sounds of mourning| The changing role of the Requiem in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries as demonstrated by the works of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten" (2001). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 3082. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/3082 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at ScholarWorks at University of Montana. 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The University of Montana Permission is granted by the author to reproduce this material in its entirety, provided that this material is used for scholarly purposes and is properly cited in published works and reports. **Please check "Yes" or "No" and provide signature** Yes, I grant permission No, I do not grant permission Author's Signal Date: 6 6 " 5 /" Any copying for commercial purposes or financial gain may be undertaken only with the author's explicit consent. 8/98 The New Sounds of Mourning: The Changing Role of the Requiem in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as Demonstrated by the Works of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten By Brian Edward Ward B.S. in Music, Texas A&M University - Commerce, 1998 In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Art in Music History and Literature The University of Montana Spring 2001 Chair, Board of Examiners Dean, Graduate School (o~ \ " O ' Date UMI Number: EP35328 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMT UMI EP35328 Published by ProQuest LLC (2012). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProOuesf ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Ward, Brian E. M.A., May 2001 Fine Arts The New Sounds of Mourning; The Changing Role of the Requiem in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as Demonstrated by the Works of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten Adviser: Fern Glass Boyd The Requiem Mass was originally a means by which the beliefs and doctrines of the Catholic Church were represented, but as the dominance of the Church began to diminish, its control over the interpretation of the Requiem gradually disappeared. By the middle of the Nineteenth Century composers began to insert their own personal beliefs and understanding into the history of the Requiem, and the gradual move towards a secular world influenced the Requiems composed in the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. The thesis will be limited to a brief history of the Requiem Mass to 1850, and a detailed examination of the Requiems of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith, and Benjamin Britten. The four major works of the thesis each provide examples of different possible interpretations of the Requiem Mass. Verdi's Requiem (1874), composed after the death of Alessandro Manzoni, provides an example of a dramatic setting of the traditional Latin text. Brahms's German Requiem (1868), written in response to the deaths of Robert Schumann and Christiane Brahms, demonstrates the possibility of composing a Requiem employing a text taken from the Bible but not related to Catholic liturgical text. Hindemith's When Lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed: a Requiem for those we love (1945), commissioned as a tribute to Franklin D. Roosevelt, is derived from the secular poem of the same name by Walt Whitman. Britten's War Requiem (1962), combines the traditional text of the Latin Mass with the poetry of Wilfred Owen to create a powerful anti-war statement. Each of the four compositions will be addressed in terms of text selection, interpretation, motivation, historical importance and compositional techniques. Though the four composers were motivated by different events, they each composed works that showed the possibilities for personal and powerful expression in the Requiems of the late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. 11 Acknowledgements I wish to thank all those who have been instrumental in the creation of this document. I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the members of my Board of Examiners, Professor James Anderson, Dr. Frederick Skinner, Professor Roger McDonald, Professor Maxine Ramey, and Dr. Thomas Cook; their time and guidance lias been greatly appreciated. I would like to offer a special thanks to my thesis adviser, Professor Fern Glass Boyd, without whose constant assistance ancLadvicethis worJccould not have been completed. I would also like to thank all of the faculty and staff of the University of Montana for their personal insight and help that they have shared with me during my years of study; it has made my time in Missoula truly memorable. Finally I wish to dedicate this work to my friends and family whose constant support and encouragement have made all this possible. Ill Table of Contents I. Introduction p. 1 IL A Brief History of the Requiem to 1850 p. 3 III. Giuseppe Verdi;Requiem for Manzoni p. 21 IV. lohzxmes'Bvahms. A GetTnanRequiem ...................... p. 44 V. Paul Hindemith: ^^When Lilacs last in the dooryard bloom 'd: " A Requiem for those we love... p. 64 VI. Benjamin Britten: War Requiem p. 85 VII. Summary p. 103 IV The New Sounds of Mourning: The Changing Role of the Requiem in the Late Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries as Demonstrated hy the Works ef Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith and Benjamin Britten Introduction: The one great universal and undeniable truth is that each of us will, at some point, cease to exist on this earthly plane. The need to gain understanding and acceptance of this unfortunate frailty of human existence has led each culture to a means by which understanding can be attained. In the Roman Gatholic Church the need to understand death and to instill the doctrine of eternal life in the hereafter led to the development of the Requiem Mass. Once officially defined and codified by the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563) the Missa pro defunctis, or Requiem Mass passed from composer to composer with only minimal changes or alterations and remained a solemn Church work through the early part of the Romantic period (circa 1805). During the mid-nineteenth century the composer’s need to create a more dramatic interpretation of the liturgical text, a setting more befitting the concert hall than the cathedral, led to changes in the Requiem Mass. The Grand messe des morts (1837) by Hector Berlioz helped shatter the traditional notion of the Requiem and gained freedom for the composer in the interpretation of the Mass. The Requiems of Giuseppe Verdi, Johannes Brahms, Paul Hindemith, and Benjamin Britten, which will be examined in detail, employed this newfound freedom, providing four different views, interpretations and understandings of the modern Requiem. The shift from the cathedral to the concert hall marks a distinctive change in the history of the Requiem for it frees composers from the constraint of established Church doctrines and practices and allows for more personal freedom of expression. This change provided for a more dramatic interpretation of the established liturgy and gave the composer the ability to rework or even replace the text of the Requiem. The four composers selected for in-depth discussionin this presentation represent the major categories of the modern Requiem. Giuseppe Verdi’s da Requiem (1874) exemplifies the dramatic representation o f the traditional Roman Catholic liturgical text. The Johannes Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45 (1868), while still religious in nature, can be seen as the Protestant equivalent of the Catholic Mass. The work of Paul Hindemith, When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed: a Requiem for those we love (1945) is an example of a completely new, and non-religious text (in this case the text comes from the poetry of Walt Whitman) created to express the feelings associated with death. Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, written for the rededication of the Coventry Cathedral in 1962, combines the secular poetry with established liturgy to create a modified Requiem, one in which the traditional Catholic text is interpolated with the words of anti-war poet Wilfred Owen. The four works show the possibilities for personal and profound expression that the Requiem of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries presented. A Brief History of the Requiem to 1850: In the early days of the Catholic Church the religious ceremonies were as much a regional interpretation of Ihe scriptures as a collection of codified edicts of a cohesive church. The burials, though mostly undocumented, would have most certainly been accompanied by singing and chants similar to that heard in the Jewish syn^ogues. Charles the Great of Gaul, who in 772 asked Pope Hadrian for a copy of the missal attributed to St.