No products are available for this work
The Australian Music Centre's catalogue does not include any recordings or sheet music of this work. This entry is for information purposes only.
Materials for this work may be lodged in our collection in the future. Until then, any enquiries should be made directly to the composer/sound artist or their agent.
Work Overview
My aunt, Marcia Lewis, died in 2023 at the age of 102. She was a nurse and midwife by training who ran my uncle's medical practice while raising five sons, and who in her spare time, and with quiet serenity helped found organisations in regional NSW to support the homeless, domestic violence victims, the lonely elderly and others. She was a devout woman and never expected or asked for recognition, but I am honoured to have composed this work as a memorial to her.
The Mass for the dead, or Requiem, remains an important part of today's Catholic liturgy, but for modern concert-goers, the term requiem tends to conjure up works by Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi and Britten - opera composers who brought to bear considerable musical resources to the challenge of depicting heaven and, more enthusiastically, hell and the Last Judgement - as well as the more gentle responses of Fauré and Duruflé.
I had wanted to make a setting of the Requiem for a cappella chorus for some time. Such an ensemble can hardly inspire terror (except perhaps unintentionally); moreover, I wanted to compose something more in line, in terms of mood and scale, with the Renaissance music in which the Australian Chamber Choir excels, so this piece in some ways nods to works such as the Missa pro defunctis of Tomás Luis de Victoria.
I also wanted - and this reflects the changes to the liturgy of the church since the Second Vatican Council - to concentrate less on hell and damnation and more on the comforting and hopeful aspects of the text. So - no Dies irae, no Libera me.
The first five movements are drawn from the Mass itself; the In paradisum night be sung as the deceased's body is borne away after the funeral, and the Responsorium at the burial. My debts to Renaissance polyphony, chants and hymns are clear. There are passages which might seem incongruously active, even cheery, for such a work, notably in the Offertorium, Sanctus and In paradisum. I can only say that the descriptions we have of paradise (in the book of Revelation, for instance, elaborated by Dante in his Commedia) remind us that it's a busy noisy place full of souls singing and moving in formation. Eternal rest isn't the Big Sleep.
Work Details
Year: 2024
Instrumentation: SATB voices.
Duration: 20 min.
Difficulty: Medium
Dedication note: in memoriam Marcia Daphne Lewis
Commission note: Commissioned by Robert Lewis for performance by Australian Chamber Choir.
User reviews
Be the first to share your thoughts, opinions and insights about this work.
To post a comment please login.