The Requiem by Francesco Durante is a masterpiece to which modern musicology and music criticism owe a profound apology for having confined it for so long to the shelves of the archives. It is believed that the first performance of the Mass is referable to the year 1746 (date found in several copies and in autographs) and that it was held in Rome in the Church of San Giacomo degli Spagnoli as a funeral tribute to Philip V, King of Spain, who died in Madrid on 9th July that same year. The Mass is written for a double choir, the first for five voices which includes two soprano lines and a second, called Coro di Ripieno consisting of three voices with the exclusion of the upper parts.