Music to die for

From wrathful Verdi to ethereal Fauré, there are many different ways to compose a Requiem, as Jeremy Pound discovers

- Jeremy Pound

I think it has to be Brahms,' replies composer Michael John Trotta, when asked by BBC Music to name his favourite Requiem. 'It's partly to do with how he brought the language into the vernacular and included additional texts. And then there's that ticking at the beginning - "bom, bom, bom" along with the vulnerability of the viola. I also remember singing the "How Lovely is Thy Dwelling Place" movement as a schoolboy and feeling enveloped by the music's warm hug!'

But soon afterwards Trotta, who has recently completed his own Requiem (see p48), changes his mind. 'I wish I had answered Mozart for my favourite Requiem,' he emails. "There's something about how he both acknowledged and transcended tradition...'

It was, of course, an unfair question. From Dufay and Ockeghem in the 15th century to Karl Jenkins and Rebecca Dale in the 21st, many of music's most accomplished and popular composers have written Requiems. Of those, several are considered masterpieces. How do you choose from such a list?

The title 'Requiem' comes from 'Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine' (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord), the first sentence of the Introit of the Catholic Mass for the Dead. Standardised in the mid-16th century by the Council of Trent (which was looking nervously over its shoulder at the rise of Protestantism), the sections of the Requiem Mass - Introit, Kyrie, Gradual, Tract, Dies Irae Sequence, Offertory, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Communion - provided a basic framework for settings to music, with composers omitting parts, adding other material and elaborating the format as they saw fit.