Music for migrants: A Mediterranean Requiem Mass

By Francesca Merlo

In October 2013, 636 migrants died in two separate shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea. Eleven years later, on 3 October 2024, the anniversary of the first tragedy, the Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan will host a tribute to the memory of all those lost in the Mediterranean. In the last decade alone, this number has topped 30,300 deaths.

On this anniversary, the Quartet of the Sea (in Italian, “Quartetto del Mare”) will take to the stage, offering a symbolic performance of an arrangement of Mozart’s Requiem. As is every string quartet, the Quartet of the Sea, is made up of two violins one viola, and one cello. Although the formation remains the same, the instruments are far from ordinary. They have been crafted by inmates from two Italian prisons from the wood of boats that once carried migrants across the sea. The concert is part of the "Metamorphosis" project, an initiative that seeks to turn instruments of danger into tools of beauty and reflection and will open with the testimonies of a refugee and an inmate, who will share their experience of survival, transformation, and the power of second chances.

The music

The Quartet of the Sea is made up of musicians Eugjen Gargjola and Agnese Tasso on violins, Eva Impellizzeri on viola, and Michele Ballarini on cello. The arrangement of Mozart’s Requiem was written by Eva Impellizzeri herself, who entitled it Mozart’s Unfinished. This title draws attention to the composer’s untimely death, which left his masterpiece incomplete, thus drawing a parallel to the lives cut short in the waters of the Mediterranean, which Pope Francis has repeatedly described as “a graveyard” for so many seeking a new beginning.

Requiem Masses, or Masses for the dead, are celebrated as suffrages for the souls of the deceased. Eva Impellizzerri chooses to end her arrangement on Lacrimosa (meaning tearful in Latin), a poignant, and perhaps the most well-known, segment of Mozart’s Requiem, left incomplete at the time of Mozart’s death, just as the lives of the migrants who drowned.

Eva Impellizzeri notes how the composer’s student, Süßmayr, completed the remaining work, drawing an analogy to how humanity continues to carry the burden of unfinished stories, those of migrants, prisoners, and all who are marginalised.

The event, and the organisations and people behind it, all follow the teachings of Pope Francis, who tirelessly advocates for the lives of migrants at sea. “Migrants”, he recently said, “should not be in those deadly seas”.

This concert is not just a tribute, but a prayer for the future, where love reigns, even for the most broken among us.  

A project following Pope Francis’ teachings

The Metamorphosis project gave light to the quartet and was founded, by the Casa dello Spirito e delle Arti Foundation, and involves inmates from the prisons of Opera and Secondigliano who craft musical instruments, from the wood of migrant boats. This initiative aims to symbolise transformation and redemption, with the prisoners gaining new skills and purpose. The foundation, created in 2012 by Arnoldo Mosca Mondadori and Marisa Baldoni, focuses on offering second chances and works with vulnerable individuals through various projects, both in Italy and around the world. The project is supported by the Realmonte ETS Association, which aids asylum seekers.