Pie Jesu

"Pie Jesu" (or "Pie Iesu") is a text from the final couplet of the hymn, "Dies irae", and often included in musical settings of the Requiem Mass as a motet.

Marc-Antoine Charpentier has composed four "Pie Jesu": H.427 (1675), H.234 (1670), H.263 (1690), H.269 (1695 ?). The settings of the Requiem Mass by Luigi Cherubini, Gabriel Fauré, Maurice Duruflé, John Rutter, Karl Jenkins, Kim André Arnesen and Fredrik Sixten include a "Pie Jesu" as an independent movement. Of all these, by far the best known is the "Pie Jesu" from Fauré's Requiem. Camille Saint-Saëns said of Fauré's "Pie Jesu" that "Just as Mozart's is the only 'Ave verum corpus', this is the only 'Pie Jesu'."[1]

Andrew Lloyd Webber's setting of "Pie Jesu" in his Requiem (1985) has also become well known and has been widely recorded.

Text

The original text, derived from the "Dies irae" sequence, is as follows:

Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem. (×2)

Pie Jesu Domine,
Dona eis requiem sempiternam.

Pious Lord Jesus,
Give them rest.

Pious Lord Jesus,
Give them everlasting rest.

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem

Andrew Lloyd Webber, in his Requiem, combined the text of the "Pie Jesu" with the version of the "Agnus Dei" from the Tridentine Requiem Mass:

Pie Jesu, (×4)
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona eis requiem. (×2)

Agnus Dei, (×4)
Qui tollis peccata mundi,
Dona eis requiem, (×2)
Sempiternam (×2)
Requiem.

Pious Jesus,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest.

Lamb of God,
Who takes away the sins of the world,
Give them rest,
Everlasting
Rest.

References
  1. Steinberg, Michael. "Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48." Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 131–137.
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