It is Reger's last completed work for chorus and orchestra, dedicated in the autograph as Dem Andenken der im Kriege 1914/15 gefallenen deutschen Helden (To the memory of the German heroes who fell in the 1914/15 War).

That publication was titled Zwei Gesänge für gemischten Chor mit Orchester (Two songs for mixed chorus with orchestra), Op.

[2] It has been described as of "lyrical beauty, a dramatic compactness, and [of] economy of musical means"[3] in which the composer's "mastery of impulse, technique, and material is apparent".

[4] In 1911 Reger was appointed Hofkapellmeister (music director) at the court of Duke Georg II of Saxe-Meiningen, while retaining his professorial duties at the Leipzig conservatory.

That year, in response to the World War, he set out to compose a choral work to commemorate the soldiers who had died or were mortally wounded.

Hebbel, however, evokes an "eternal rest" that is distinctly non-religious: the poem offers no metaphysical reference, Christian or otherwise, but calls for remembrance as the only way to keep the dead alive.

[8][9] The first lines, in which the speaker calls upon the soul not to forget the dead, are repeated in the centre of the poem and again at its conclusion, as a refrain that sets apart two longer sections of verse.

Und er jagt sie mit Ungestüm Durch die unendliche Wüste hin, Wo nicht Leben mehr ist, nur Kampf Losgelassener Kräfte Um erneuertes Sein!

[4] He composed it for the Basler Liedertafel, conducted by Hermann Suter, who performed it on 18 May 1912 to celebrate their 60th anniversary before giving the official premiere at the national Schweizer Eidgenössisches Sängerfest (Swiss federal song festival) in Neuchâtel on 22 July 1912.

[16] Similar descending chords are often found in Reger's works as a musical expression of "pain, fear, death, and suffering—common associations with chromaticism since the sixteenth century", according to FitzGibbon.

[16] The motet was published under the title Requiem as the closing part of Zehn Lieder für Männerchor (Ten songs for men's chorus), Op.

[18] By the autumn of 1914, he was in discussion with a theologian in Giessen about a composition, tentatively titled "Die letzten Dinge (Jüngstes Gericht u. Auferstehung)" "(The Last Things [Final Judgment and Resurrection])".

[20] The Lateinisches Requiem is scored for soloists (soprano, alto, tenor, bass), a four-part (SATB) choir, three flutes (also piccolo), two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three percussionists and strings.

[21] The first movement opens with a long organ pedal point, which has been compared to the beginning of Wagner's Das Rheingold and the Brahms Requiem.

Hellmut von Hase titled his text Totenfeier (Rite of the Dead) and managed to serve "the Nazi adulation of the fallen war hero" (as FitzGibbon said), dropping references to the bible.

He replaced for example "exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet" (Hear my prayer; to you shall all flesh come) by "In sorrow we mutely lower the flags, for into the grave sunk what was dear to us.

144a, a setting of a poem by Joseph von Eichendorff, as Zwei Gesänge für gemischten Chor mit Orchester (Two songs for mixed chorus with orchestra), Op.

[26] Reger titled the autograph of the piano version: Zwei Gesänge / für / gemischten Chor / mit Orchester / Nr.

2) Requiem / (Hebbel), and he wrote the dedication: Dem Gedenken der im / Kriege 1914/15 gefallenen / deutschen Helden (To the memory of the German heroes who fell in the War 1914/15).

)[2] Requiem was first published by N. Simrock in 1916, edited by Ulrich Haverkampf, with the dedication Dem Andenken der im großen Kriege gefallenen deutschen Helden (To the memory of the German heroes who fell in the Great War).

[8] The Hebbel Requiem was first performed, together with Der Einsiedler, in Heidelberg on 16 July 1916, after the composer's death, as part of a memorial concert for Reger,[2] featuring Eva Katharina Lissmann, the choirs Bachverein and Akademischer Gesangverein, and the enlarged Städtisches Orchester (Municipal Orchestra), conducted by Philipp Wolfrum.

[29] The chorus, here divided in eight parts, evokes the start of the spiritual ascent, "Sieh, sie umschweben dich, schauernd, verlassen" (See, they hover around you, shuddering, abandoned), in mostly homophonic chords, marked ppp,[33] in a fashion reminiscent of Schütz.

[16] On the word "erstarren" (stiffens), the chorus settles on a dissonant 5-part chord, held for two measures, suddenly fortissimo with a crescendo at the end, then repeated pianissimo, an octave lower, motionless.

The chorus repeats these words, marked espressivo, dolcissimo, on the melody of the chorale "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden",[39] five stanzas of which Bach used in his St Matthew Passion.

Reger is known for quoting chorales in general and this one in particular, most often referring to its last stanza "Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden",[16] which Bach included in the Passion right after the death of Jesus.

[42] The Requiem employs an orchestra of two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, cor anglais, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, three percussionists and strings.

[43] The choir, expanded into the Reger-Chor-International by singers from Belgium, performed the work again in 2001 with organist Ignace Michiels from St. Salvator's Cathedral, Bruges, both there and in St. Bonifatius, Wiesbaden (recorded live).

[46] The Hebbel Requiem was performed as part of the Ouverture spirituelle of the 2014 Salzburg Festival, along with Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, with Plácido Domingo as baritone soloist and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

[47] To mark the centenary of Reger's death in 2016, the broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk staged a concert of the Hebbel Requiem in early May, conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffens.

[48] In a review of a recording of choral works by Reger, Gavin Dixon said that the Requiem is "almost mystical in its use of widely spaced chords, unusual harmonic shifts and dreamy arpeggios in the accompaniment".