The requiem begins with a murmur of muted cellos only just within the threshold of audibility..from it evolvs a large paragraph of twenty-seven bars for chorus and muted strings to the words 'Dona eis, Domine'. When you listen to the Requiem, please note the motive which is played by the strings above the Chorus. It will be used further on in the Requiem.

'Dona eis, Domine' -realaudio

A brief episode in F major ('Te decet hymnus') allows the chorus to show its paces in flights of imitative a cappella counterpoint.
The muted, quiet music of the beginning returns..
The Kyrie brings an increase of motion in the orchestra. It also serves as a sort of major-key complement to what has gone before: Over a descending pattern of cello and bassoon, the four soloists succssively "launch their rockets". The sense of a continually widening vista is conveyed partly by the contrary motion between voice and orchestra, partly by an adroit combination of pitch and tonality in the soloists' entries.

'Kyrie eleison' the beginning -realaudio

later on the orchestral movement breaks into semi-quavers - the soloists and chorus are now on equal terms, both forcefully thrust forward.
Behind the harmonic shiftings, with their varying pace, the orchestra establishes, after a while, a two-bar tramp; The music thrusts forward into D minor urged by 'fatal' rat-tat-tats from the timpani. at the climax the music breaks off. A few chords follow, like faltering questions, answered in turn by a melting, but not cloying cadence in A major.
A coda re-assumes the previous material in much the same sense, doubt and anxiety being quelled by a still richer cadential phrase.
A harmonic epigram (F-B flat-E-A), typical of the mature works of verdi, brings the movement to its hushed close.