Modern Requiem Compositions and Musical Knowledge of Death and Afterlife

Abstract

In this chapter, I shall explore several Requiem Masses from the second half of the twentieth century onward. The questions I want to address are: Which views of death and the afterlife can be heard in these compositions? Do contemporary Requiem Masses reflect the way death is experienced as it is embedded in our culture?1 I will successively discuss the Requiem Masses by Rutter (1985), Penderecki (1980-2005), and Jenkins (2004). Each of these Requiem Masses will be dealt with from the perspective of the central question: Which elements of the texts used and the music composed are characteristic and contribute to a view of death as experienced by the listener?