The Requiem of Orlandus Lassus
November is traditionally a month of remembrance in the Catholic Church, beginning with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. This programme explores one of the two Requiems composed by Orlandus Lassus (1532–1594), both written during his time as Kapellmeister at the court in Munich. Neither appears to have been commissioned for a specific funeral; both were published and were presumably intended for wider use.
The four-part Requiem featured here survives in two versions. Vox Luminis performs a manuscript version from 1575, which differs from the printed edition: it is transposed down a fifth and includes the Dies irae, sung alternately in plainchant and polyphony. The programme continues with two settings of Media vita in morte sumus (‘In the midst of life we are in death’), by Jacobus de Kerle and Nicolas Gombert, followed by William Byrd’s Miserere.
Playlist
Orlandus Lassus (1532–1594)
- Officium pro omnibus fidelibus defunctis a 4 (LV624)
Vox Luminis; Lionel Meunier (conductor)
CD: Requiem – Ricercar RIC 493 (2026)
Jacobus de Kerle (1531–1591)
2. Media vita in morte sumus a 6
Nicolas Gombert (1495–1560)
3. Media vita in morte sumus a 6
Huelgas Ensemble; Paul Van Nevel (conductor)
CD: Bonefont, Missa pro mortuis – Cypres CYP1682 (2020)
Additional track
William Byrd (1543–1623)
4. Miserere
Concerto delle Viole
CD: Consort Songs – Music by William Byrd and his Contemporaries – Olive Music OM 004 (2005)
Image: Opening of the Gregorian sequence Dies irae (gregorian-chant-hymns.com)
