Agnus Dei (music)

Agnus Dei, referring to the Christian theological concept of the Lamb of God and the associated liturgical text from the Roman Catholic Latin Mass, has been set to music by many composers, as it is normally one of the movements or sections in a sung Mass setting.^[1]^[2] However, sometimes it stands alone, e.g. it provides the lyrics for Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei, the choral arrangement of his Adagio for Strings.

Text

The Agnus Dei is a setting of the "Lamb of God" litany, based on John the Baptist's reference in John 1:29 to Jesus ("Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world"):

Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
miserere nobis.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi,
dona nobis pacem.

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
have mercy upon us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.

In a Requiem Mass, the words "miserere nobis" are replaced by "dona eis requiem" (grant them rest), while "dona nobis pacem" is replaced by "dona eis requiem sempiternam" (grant them eternal rest).

Examples

Agnus Dei from Schubert's Mass No. 2

Some examples from full mass settings include:

The fifth movement of Guillaume de Machaut's Messe de Nostre Dame
The twenty-fourth movement of Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B minor
The seventh part of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem
The fifth movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's Missa Solemnis
The sixth movement of Franz Schubert's Mass No. 2
The sixth movement of Robert Schumann's Mass in C Minor, Op. 147
The fifth part of Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem
The fifth movement of Gabriel Fauré's Requiem
Movement 5 of John Rutter's Requiem
The fifth movement of Bob Chilcott's Little Jazz Mass
The fifth movement of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Mass in G minor
The fifth movement of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, in which the text is interleaved with Wilfred Owen's poem "At a Calvary near the Ancre"

Further examples are too numerous to name, as virtually every setting of the Mass Ordinary or Proper (of which there are thousands) includes an Agnus Dei. The text has also been used by composers for arrangements in popular culture, including:

Elliot Goldenthal for Alien 3
Keiki Kobayashi for Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies
Elitsa Alexandrova for Assassin's Creed Rogue
Enya for the song Trains and Winter Rains
Halsey for the song Castle
Kuroshitsuji (Black Butler) soundtrack for episodes 17 and 18
Jon Bellion for Ooh
Jon Sandman's twitch stream of Detroit: Become Human

References

↑ The Harvard dictionary of music by Don Michael Randel 2003 ISBN 0-674-01163-5 page 28
↑ The earliest settings of the Agnus Dei and its tropes by Charles Mercer Atkinson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1975 page 14

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[1] The Harvard dictionary of music by Don Michael Randel 2003 ISBN 0-674-01163-5 page 28

[2] The earliest settings of the Agnus Dei and its tropes by Charles Mercer Atkinson, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1975 page 14

Agnus Dei (music)

Text

Examples

See also

References