In 1787, Haydn received a commission to write music for the Good Friday service at the Grotto Santa Cueva near Càdiz in southern Spain. He later explained to his amanuensis Griesinger :

Some fifteen years ago I was requested by a canon of Cádiz to compose instrumental music on the seven last words of Our Savior on the Cross. It was customary at the Cathedral of Cádiz to produce an oratorio every year during Lent, the effect of the performance being not a little enhanced by the following circumstances. The walls, windows, and pillars of the church were hung with black cloth, and only one large lamp hanging from the center of the roof broke the solemn darkness. At midday, the doors were closed and the ceremony began. After a short service the bishop ascended the pulpit, pronounced the first of the seven words (or sentences) and delivered a discourse thereon. This ended, he left the pulpit and fell to his knees before the altar. The interval was filled by music. The bishop then in like manner pronounced the second word, then the third, and so on, the orchestra following on the conclusion of each discourse. My composition was subject to these conditions, and it was no easy task to compose seven adagios lasting ten minutes each, and to succeed one another without fatiguing the listeners; indeed, I found it quite impossible to confine myself to the appointed limits.

Originally these seven meditations on the Last Words (culled from the various gospels) were for a full classical orchestra; as well as the actual "musical discourse" Haydn added an "Introduzione" and, at the end, a "Terremota" or earthquake, after Matthew 28:2. Much of the work is consolatory and meditative, but this last movement introduces a very different element of supernatural intervention: Haydn asks the orchestra to play “Presto e con tutta la forza,” and it closes with the unprecedented dynamic of fortississimo (triple forte).

Haydn later went on to arrange this orchestral work for string quartet, and even for voices; in the first violin part of the quartet version, he includes the Latin text directly under the notes which "speak" the words musically. This quartet version has come under some suspicion of its authenticity, due to the occasionally careless manner of transcription, with crucial wind passages left out and only the accompanimental figures in the strings retained; although this is the most popular version of this piece, many quartets make their own adaptation of the orchestral original.