"Requiem Mass" by Herbert Howells, contributed by Tara Guetzloe (2025)
Howells wrote his Requiem Mass in 1932 in the aftermath of unparalleled loss in World War I. When the requiem was found in 1980, it was initially thought to have been written for Howells’ son Michael, who died of polio at age 9. Researchers later discovered that the requiem was actually written 3 years before Michael’s death. Still, loss had accompanied Howells throughout his life, and I believe that this familiarity with grief allowed him to write a truly inspired work of art.
Howells departs from the normal collection of texts for a mass, instead having six parts: Salvator mundi (“Savior of the world”), a ministration to the sick from the Book of Common Prayer; Psalm 23; Requiem aeternam I (“Rest eternal grant upon them”); Psalm 121; Requiem aeternam II (“Rest eternal grant upon them”); and I heard a voice from heaven (Revelation 14:13). This collection of texts creates an atmosphere of comfort and hope in the outpouring of grief. The music pulls at your very being with dissonant chords building into calmer, soaring resolutions. Howells managed to capture the essence of the intense despair felt with loss and how it can settle into a place of quiet hope and trust.