Requiem for the Fallen (2013)
for SSAATTBB choir, a cappella
Text: Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Henry Wadworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
Duration: 7 minutes
Difficulty: 3/4
Winner of the Spring 2013 Call for Scores by the University of Regina Chamber Singers.
First performed by the University of Regina Chamber Singers (Dominic Gregorio, dir.) in April 2013.
My Requiem for the Fallen is not a traditional setting of the Latin mass, but rather an adaptation of two elegant poems from the time of the American Civil War. The first three movements are based on Henry David Thoreau's "Haze"; it opens with an Introit, an invocation of the dense haze that cloaks the soldiers as they proceed to the battlefield. This is followed by the Dies Irae, embodying the faceless Machine of War, full of vague hallucinatory imagery. The Libera Me breaks the tension, and is a plea for peace in the midst of chaos. In Paradisum, the final movement, sets a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Aftermath." As the work comes to a close, this simple chorale is intended to remind us that in the ravages of war, we are all united in our loss.
Click here to see the complete score.
The audio below is a private recording made by the University of Regina Chamber Singers in April 2013.
Full Text
I. Introit
Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze,
woven of Nature’s richest stuffs,
II. Dies Irae
visible heat, air-water, and dry sea,
last conquest of the eye;
Toil of the day displayed, sun-dust,
aerial surf upon the shores of earth,
ethereal estuary, frith of light,
breakers of air, billows of heat,
fine summer spray on inland seas;
III. Libera Me
Bird of the sun, transparent – winged
owlet of noon, soft-pinioned,
from hearth or stubble rising without song;
Establish thy serenity o’er the fields.
IV. In Paradisum
When the summer fields are mown,
when the birds are fledged and flown,
and the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
with the cawing of the crow,
once again the fields we mow
and gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
is this harvesting of ours;
not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
where the poppy drops its seeds
in the silence and the gloom.