About this edition
Dvořák composed his Requiem in B‑flat minor, Op. 89, in 1890 on a commission from the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival, and conducted the premiere there himself in October 1891. Cast in thirteen movements for four vocal soloists, chorus, and large orchestra, it is among the most ambitious sacred works of the late nineteenth century, setting the Latin Missa pro defunctis on a scale comparable to his earlier Stabat Mater. Its most striking feature is a brooding chromatic motif, whispered in the strings in the opening bars, that recurs throughout the entire work and binds nearly an hour and a half of music into a single sustained meditation on death and consolation.
This volume reproduces the first edition of the full score, published in London by Novello, Ewer & Co. in 1892 (plate 9275), the year after the premiere. Novello was Dvořák's principal English publisher during the years of his greatest fame in Britain, and issued the Requiem both in full score and in the octavo vocal score that carried it into choral societies across the country. Prepared in the immediate aftermath of the composer‑led premiere, this early Novello printing preserves the work as its first audiences knew it and served as the standard performing text for generations of British conductors and choruses.
About this edition:
- Complete full orchestral score
- Page size: 8.5 x 11 inches
- Reproduced from a public domain source
- Faithful reprint of the 1892 Novello first edition
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing
This edition reproduces a historical score that now resides in the public domain, making Dvořák's Requiem available once again in an affordable, readable format. We hope it serves conductors, singers, students, and scholars who want to study and perform this remarkable work from a full score.
