A German Requiem (Brahms) the traditional Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, which employs a standardized text in Latin, the text is derived from the German Luther Bible. Brahms's first known use of the title "Ein deutsches Requiem" was in an 1865 letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended the piece to be ""eine Art deutsches Requiem"" (a sort of German Requiem). Brahms was quite moved when he found out years later that Robert Schumann had planned a work of the same name. "German" refers primarily to the language rather than the intended audience. Brahms told Carl Martin Reinthaler, director of music
Music for the Requiem Mass aeternam" (two different settings), and "I heard a voice from heaven." Some composers have written purely instrumental works bearing the title of "requiem", as famously exemplified by Britten's "Sinfonia da Requiem". Hans Werner Henze's "Das Floß der Medusa", written in 1968 as a requiem for Che Guevara, is properly speaking an oratorio; Henze's Requiem is instrumental but retains the traditional Latin titles for the movements. Igor Stravinsky's "Requiem canticles" mixes instrumental movements with segments of the "Introit," "Dies irae," "Pie Jesu," and "Libera me." American composer Dan Forrest has written "Requiem for the Living", a five-movement piece that follows the