Format : Vocal Score
Morten Lauridsen’s setting of Lux Aeterna a five movement non-liturgical requiem for choir and chamber orchestra/organ is a rich and intensely moving work. Choral textures are fully explored from the sonorous slow unfolding of the Introitus and the intricate counterpoint and paired voices of In Te Domine Speravi to the cappella motet O Nata Lux and spirited canticle Veni Sancte Spiritus. The last movement a sublime Agnus Dei preceding the final Lux Aeterna closes with a joyous Alleluia to provide an uplifting conclusion to this most powerful work.Available here is the vocal scorefor SATB divisi chorus with Organ Accompaniment.
SKU: BT.PMC3367
Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to 'Light,' assembled from various sacred Latin texts. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother's final illness and found great personal comfortand solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels - spiritual, artistic and intellectual. The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of theRequiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, O Nata Lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus. The opening Introitus introduces several themes that recur later in the work and includes an extended canonon et lux perpetua. In Te, Domine, Speravi contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus Herzliebster Jesu (from the Nuremburg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on fiat misericordia. O Nata Lux and Veni,Sancte Spiritus are paired songs, the former an a cappella motet at the center of the work and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. A quiet setting of the Agnus Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, which reprises the openingsection of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful celebratory Alleluia. --Morten Lauridsen.
