Requiems (or indeed, Requiem Masses)

CPDL topics that don't fit in the other categories
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Requiems should be categorized as:

Poll ended at 10 Jan 2006 23:45

Requiems only
1
20%
Masses only
0
No votes
Requiems and Masses
3
60%
I abstain from voting
1
20%
 
Total votes: 5

pml
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Requiems (or indeed, Requiem Masses)

Post by pml »

Hi all,

to start a new topic rolling (and play with running a poll, hurrah :)

I've noticed the vague beginnings of having Requiem masses sorted under a category of their own, but so far not many works have been thus categorised. Before anyone rushes to do this, shall we decide categories?

Requiems to me are evidently a special subset of masses; afterall they have some movements in common with ordinary masses (Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei*) even though they perform a separate and specific liturgical function, so it seems to me that a Requiem page should categorise the work dually as:
[[Category:Requiems]]
and
[[Category:Masses]]

Could any Wikipedians advise the best way to do some sorting in the Masses category to weed the Requiems out from among the ordinaries? Would something syntactically like
[[Category:Masses|Requiem masses]]
achieve the result of having all the requiems listed separately, or would we need to do something a bit more clever?

Regards, Philip

* This rather narrow dividing line between Requiems and ordinary masses would become slightly thinner if I were to upload several editions I've produced for the church I normally sing at in Melbourne, St Peter's Eastern Hill; a few years ago the then-director of music had a bright idea of performing a couple of movements (Kyrie, Sanctus-Benedictus) from a missa pro defunctis during Advent (when the Gloria isn't normally sung, and we always sing Credo to plainchant). So I offered to reset a couple of the Agnus Dei movements using the ordinary mass text rather than the requiem mass text: i.e.
Agnus Dei... miserere nobis... dona nobis pacem rather than
Agnus Dei... dona eis requiem... sempiternam.

The results with G.F. Anerio's 4vv Requiem were encouraging, so the next year we similarly performed some of the movements from Victoria's Officium defunctorum this way. Not all Requiems lend themselves to this sort of rearrangment, it must be said.
CHGiffen
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Post by CHGiffen »

Hi Philip and all,

There is nothing wrong with having two categories for Requiems:

[[Category:Requiems]]
[[Category:Masses]]

Using [[Category:Masses|Requiem masses]] will have the effect of causing the work to be listed under the alphabetical heading R - which, since masses movements have not yet all been combined on single pages will be of some benefit.

If the current system of just putting [[Category:Masses]] at the bottom of a choral works page persists and as the combining of mass movements onto single mass pages continues, we will move to a state where there will be a HUGE number of works listed under M (masses), a somewhat smaller number listed under R (requiems), and a few outliers under such headings as O (Officium...), E or D (Ein Deutsches Requiem), etc.

I don't know about you, but nearly every musician I know would much prefer a listing on the Category:Masses page that is alphabetical by composer last name. We've been careful to put [[Category:American composers|Billings, William]] and the like on composer pages in order to get the composers listed composer category pages alphabetically. With a category such as Masses or Requiems (since, except for variations on the title - the underlying texts being more or less the same), we know what type of work we're dealing with - hence, we should provide a reasonable sorting criterion, and it seems evident to me that it should be the composer last name.

Best regards,

Chuck
Charles H. Giffen
CPDL Board of Directors Chair
Admin at & Manager of ChoralWiki
pml
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Post by pml »

Hi Chuck,

that makes a great deal of sense to me - at present the Mass category is in quite a mess the way it currently is, and the Requiems category will probably head the same way if we don't correct matters now. I agree the most logical sorting method is definitely by composer: a mass is a mass is a mass - except when it's a requiem. :)

Cheerio, PML
admin
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Post by admin »

Hi,

I agree with a listing in order of composer for the Mass category (Eventually). How many Requiems do we have? I agree with Chuck that we should have two categories

[[Category:Requiems]]
and
[[Category:Masses]]

Since 'Requiem' is clearly a subset of 'Mass'. In the case of Masses and Requiems, we have a mess with names: Missa, Mass, Messe and Requiem, Messa da Requiem, Missa pro difunctos, etc. I guess the listing should be

[[Palestrina, Giovanni Pierluigi da: Missa Brevis]]

Which would then appear under 'P'. I just checked the Masses category, and there are still an enormous number of files that need to be cleaned up. All movements from a mass should be moved/combined. I still see sevaral questions arising: What about single movement pieces (like Vivaldi's "Gloria". They are Mass movements, but they don't fit in with the 'A mass is a mass' view. SHould it appear under 'V' or 'G', or should there be some categorization which works for independent mass movements. Another question, Requiems have a lot of variation in movements. How do we point folks in the right direction, especially if they are not knowledgable?

Best, Raf
pml
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Post by pml »

Hi Rafe!

yes, there is still a backlog of work to consolidate mass movements of complete works, which is still ongoing. Every so often I get a burst of enthusiasm and clean up one or two masses - for a while I was concentrating on the Requiems, since they have rather more movements than the typical mass ordinary (which reduces the clutter by a slightly greater proportion).

Independent mass movements again should be sorted under the composer's surname, thus under T for John Taverner's Leroy Kyrie, G for Nicolas Gombert's 8vv Credo, or V for the above-mentioned Vivaldi Gloria.

Perhaps the place for categorization of standalone mass movements is best organised under each mass movement's own separate texts and translations page. For example, the wiki.php/Requiem page has a table of links for the separate Requiem pages as well as pointers to the various text and translation pages. Likewise the wiki.php/Kyrie page might be the place to link just the standalone settings - not every single Mass that has a Kyrie, which would end up being a list of almost every mass on the site!

With regard to the diversity of possible movements in a Requiem: what do you think of the explanation of the Requiem format on that page? That the Requiem is a composite of the Ordinary (sans Gloria, Credo), the Propers for the mass for the dead (Introitus, Graduale, Offertorium, Communio) and other texts (Tractus, Sequentia) from the mass itself, or also the burial service (Libera me, In paradisum, Chorus angelorum)...

If people aren't knowledgeable about the format of the Latin mass (i.e. Ordinary doesn't change much, Propers change for each mass) then the diversity or variations won't make much sense anyway...

Also, the page for the Mass ordinary should include some references to movements that may be part of a mass setting: the text of the dismissal is usually included in plainsong masses (Ite, missa est. Deo gratias.) and I vaguely recall some modern composers (e.g. Kodály) setting this text; for that matter, there was a vogue in France to include extra movements such as "God save our King" (Domine, salvum fac regem nostrum), which is set notably by Berlioz in his juvenile Messe solennelle.

Best regards, PML
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Post by luis henriques »

i personally like to call "Missa Pro Defunctis" or "Officium Defunctorum"


see you soon


Luís Henriques
Luís C. F. Henriques (University of Évora)
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