Requiem Fragments
SATB choir
(2015)

Text: excerpted from liturgical Requiem text
Language: Latin
Duration: 15 minutes

Premiered November 2015
Junior Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh PA

Composer’s Note

This piece was commissioned by Stephen Neely and the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh. The choir is made up of approximately 60 high school students from western Pennsylvania. For this group of young musicians, I chose to set not the whole Requiem text, but rather a set of fragments of these famous words. I wanted them to be able to explore a deep development of several ideas with the benefit of breaks after each movement, so that they could reset their musical intentions and start the next piece. With a through-composed work, setting the whole text would have been a massive idea for them to work through and grasp; I wanted this piece to be an introduction to the text so that when they inevitably encountered the works of Mozart, Faure, Durufle, Verdi, and Brahms, their practice would be somehow informed.

Movements

I. Requiem Aeternam
II. Kyrie Eleison
III. Quaerens Me
IV. Quantus Tremor
V. Pie Jesu
VI. Fac eas, Domine
VII. Lux Aeterna and Amen

Perusal score forthcoming.