'Requiem'

[Pabmusic]

Well, getting back to the assertion that ‘Requiem is just a word’, I queried exactly what this meant because it seemed to me to have no more meaning than ‘wine is just a liquid’: you can wash your hair in it, water the plants with it, put it in the cistern and flush the toilet with it. And you can, because it’s a liquid. But you don’t.

So with the title of a musical work: a composer is as free to put any name on it as he is to water his plants with wine. But I don’t believe composers usually pick on a random word: Plank, Kiosk, Pin, and then say well, it’s just a word.

Requiem is not ‘just a word’: it’s a special word. It’s a Latin word, a noun, meaning ‘rest’. It’s a noun in the accusative case, and therefore implies some unexpressed context where it is the object of a verb. As such, it suggests the phrase ‘Requiem aeternam (dona eis, domine)’, and the Catholic Mass for the Dead. If it had been Requies it wouldn’t have had those associations even though both are 'just words'.

Now, it seems quite reasonable to me to call a piece of music Requiem, or A Requiem, if it has associations with death and rest, so I see no problem with the Brand New Requiem having that title even if it doesn’t set the words of the Mass. The concept of eternal rest hasn’t been copyrighted.

Coming to Henze’s instrumental Requiem, I simply pointed that it was divided into movements, each of which had the title of a section of the Mass for the Dead, beginning with the Introit (Requiem aeternam). At this point I very rashly said that it ‘could hardly be called anything else’ but Requiem. Quite absurd. It could have been called ‘So, farewell then’, or ‘Gone but not forgotten’, or ‘In memory of my old friend Karl’. But such titles would have lost something which had been gained by taking the trouble to name the movements after the sections of the Requiem, so I find the objection to my comment slightly nitpicking.

But this is why I find the statement ‘Requiem is just a word’ puzzling.

Excellent post. In the 16th and 17th centuries, English composers wrote dozens of In Nomines, the title from the Latin of Gloria Tibi Trinitas, set by John Taverner in an early mass. Composers found different ways of working the plainchant tune as a cantus firmus into new, often secular, music and the pieces became known as In Nomines (Orlando Gibbons' The Cryes of London is an example). 'In Nomine' is just two words at one level, and the many composers who used them could have chosen something else. But they didn't. They chose In Nomine, and by that title meant something, as witness the fact that their piece included the plainchant cipher. They used In Nomine as jargon for 'a piece, often instrumental and maybe secular, based on a particular phrase from the mass'. Languages use jargon a lot - it's useful shorthand.

'Requiem' is a similar jargon word (at least, as far as music goes). If a composer chooses that word as a title, it is hard to believe that the baggage is never meant to come with the word. So, 'Requiem' is a word only in the sense that it's not 'apple' or 'the conceptual paradigm of reality', which seems so obvious that it's hardly worth pointing out.

[Simon]

If only Wittgenstein were here to join in our jolly language-game!

Indeed. And provide yet more notes on the keyboards of our imagination...

[Simon]

more heavy irony, Simes?

but words in fact have are closer to a part of a spectrum, aren't they? and the difficulty is in transmitting the meaning in the way that we intend, to a listener or reader who brings an entirely different set of experiences to that word.
The word " requiem" means, to quite a lot of folk, this jolly tune:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7WPI4TJImo

and not all that much else in any other way that is very meaningful.

No irony, just messing really, with a vaguely serious point somewhere.

You're right about the meanings, though, IMO. There are indeed some to whom Requiem will probably only ever mean KJ.

Though as a metallist I've never much rated that style.

[teamsaint]

No irony, just messing really, with a vaguely serious point somewhere.

You're right about the meanings, though, IMO. There are indeed some to whom Requiem will probably only ever mean KJ.

Though as a metallist I've never much rated that style.

off topic, would be intrigued to hear about your taste in Metal ! Some interesting use of language in their sub genres also. As for KJ...had their moments, but ...but 2 or 3 singles was enough for me .

[MrGongGong]

And specific words mean specific things, which is fortunate, because that's how we use them.
:

Some do
but I doubt we would all agree to which ones (which is surely the point ?)

take the word "noise" for example
or "note", "pitch" and "frequency"

and so on

I think S is a Gorgoroth man ?

[french frank]

I wonder if you can say - with any justice - that the differing use of words distinguishes the "Artist" from the "Scientist"? The Artist chooses words for their penumbra of associations and meanings, sometimes deliberately for their ambiguities; whereas the Scientist invents new words (or new uses for words) which have very precise meanings for clearly defined 'objects' (e.g. plants) where there is a necessity to stipulate 'I mean this, not that'.

[Pabmusic]

I wonder if you can say - with any justice - that the differing use of words distinguishes the "Artist" from the "Scientist"? The Artist chooses words for their penumbra of associations and meanings, sometimes deliberately for their ambiguities; whereas the Scientist invents new words (or new uses for words) which have very precise meanings for clearly defined 'objects' (e.g. plants) where there is a necessity to stipulate 'I mean this, not that'.

Good point, though it's probably less of a science-vs-poetry thing than a reflection of the fact that we use words in different ways at different times, depending on whether we need precision or not. There's a Bill Bryson quote (I can't find it now) along the lines that we need a measure of common agreement that m-o-u-s-e spells the name of a small house-loving rodent, rather than e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t, which leaves very large holes in the skirting boards.

[amateur51]

Good point, though it's probably less of a science-vs-poetry thing than a reflection of the fact that we use words in different ways at different times, depending on whether we need precision or not. There's a Bill Bryson quote (I can't find it now) along the lines that we need a measure of common agreement that m-o-u-s-e spells the name of a small house-loving rodent, rather than e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t, which leaves very large holes in the skirting boards.

I think the use/meaning of the word catalyst serves a useful purpose here. It is commonly used to mean 'something which initiatites, precipitates or speeds up events' whereas in chemistry a catalyst is 'something that may speed up or slow down the rate of a chemical reaction and remain unchanged at the end'. The scientific definition contains at least two qualities that are missing from the everyday language usage.

[Pabmusic]

I think the use/meaning of the word catalyst serves a useful purpose here. It is commonly used to mean 'something which initiatites, precipitates or speeds up events' whereas in chemistry a catalyst is 'something that may speed up or slow down the rate of a chemical reaction and remain unchanged at the end'. The scientific definition contains at least two qualities that are missing from the everyday language usage.

Spot on, Ams.