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MARC-ANTOINE CHARPENTIER spent the mid-late 1660s – his early 20s – studying composition in Rome. When he returned to Paris, he was most fortunate to be taken in under the patronage of Mlle de Guise, head of one of the illustrious French royal families and related to Louis XIV. Charpentier composed pieces for Mlle's own musicians, or for the religious establishments she visited. In August 1671 he was called to compose a Requiem Mass to commemorate the death of Joseph de Lorraine, Duc de Guise. Joseph, Mlle's neice, had married Louis XIV's cousin, and so the funeral was accorded the pomp and ceremony of a royal ceremony, including the use of royal musicians. The Messe pour les Trespasses (H.2) was composed for this event, but it seems to have been modified subsequently, with the addition of string symphonies, and it was probably re-used for the remembrance service held on the annivesary of the prince's death in 1672, and the death of the prince's infant son, the last male heir of the Guises, in 1675. Typical of French Requiems at this time, Charpentier only set the Mass Ordinary - Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus and Agnus Dei – and the Pie Jesu. The influence of Charpentier's time in Rome is seen in his use of two choirs – at about this time he was also writing a 3-choir Salve Regina and a 4-choir Mass. The choirs may be used in dialogue with each other, or a group of solo voices may be drawn from them.