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Madison Scott-Clary 2022-01-23 00:37:14 -08:00
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## Structure
The piece is broken up into five movements, leading with "Introitus". This movement opens with one of the lowest notes a contrabass can play and one of the highest notes a violin can play, both played incredibly quietly. The distance between the pitches leads to a sense of openness and majesty
The piece is broken up into five movements, leading with "Introitus". This movement opens with one of the lowest notes a contrabass can play and one of the highest notes a violin can play, both played incredibly quietly. The distance between the pitches leads to a sense of openness and majesty and leaves room for a slow building of a simple melody through the strings and, eventually, the winds. These reach a crescendo and cadence, and after a brief pause, the choir enters, *a cappella*, singing solid major-add-9 chord for the first line of text before breaking into a more traditional melody and harmony.
The text for this movement is taken from one of the calmer parts of the requiem mass, "Grant them eternal rest and let eternal light shine on them." As mentioned, the texts throughout the piece rely more on the concepts of rest and light ("lux aeterna" being the eternal light) as the aspects that greet one after or through death. This continues into the second movement, which relies on a portion of the hymn "Te Deum", and as the choir and orchestra trade melodic phrases, the words describe how Jesus overcame the sting of death to open the kingdom of heaven to all believers. While I would hesitate to call myself a Christian and certainly wouldn't call myself a Catholic, as a choir singer, conductor, and composer, the "Te Deum" hymn is incredibly familiar to me and bears a lot of strong memories --- I'm pretty sure I have Britten's "Festival Te Deum" still memorized.
The middle movement, "O Nata Lux" is one of Lauridsen's most performed pieces. As a solely *a cappella* piece, it is often performed on its own outside the context of "Lux". Along with his "O Magnum Mysterium", it epitomizes his sacred choral composition style: a motet that shifts between hymn-like composition (one note per syllable, a focus on chords rather than melodic lines) and fugal melodies. The text is a supplication to "Jesus, born of light" to hear the prayers of the faithful.
Movement four, "Veni Sancte Spiritus", is a joyful, hymn-like invocation sung primarily in unison over an orchestral accompaniment of woven melodic lines. Despite being the longest text, the rollicking nature and quick tempo lead it to be the shortest of all five movements. As an invocation, each line comes as a request: "O light most blessed, fill the inmost heart of thy faithful", "Cleanse what is dirty, moisten what is dry, heal what is hurt", and so on.
The final movement is another motet, about half of which is sung *a cappella*. The opening orchestral melodies finally return towards the end, building up beneath a text that echoes some of the first verse but relies primarily on the "Agnus Dei" hymn from the liturgy, which describes Jesus as the Lamb of God.
## Context