Requiem Mass 2026: Notes from the Conductor
-
October 20, 2026November 1st is the Solemnity of All Saints, and November 2nd is All Souls’ Day, when the Global Church prays for all our faithful departed. This year, for our annual Requiem Mass, the choir and our chamber orchestra present Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna in its entirety.
Lauridsen wrote the Lux Aeterna in 1997, while his mother was gravely ill. It was a source of comfort for him during that time, and that soft sensitivity is apparent throughout the work. It doesn’t rage or tremble the way the great Requiems of Verdi and Berlioz do, instead it’s much closer in spirit to Fauré’s Requiem, which treats death as a sort of passage, rather than an ending.
Rather than setting the traditional Requiem text straight through, Lauridsen chose Latin texts from across the Church’s tradition that all speak of light. You’ll hear the prayer for eternal rest from the Requiem Introit, verses from a variety of Psalms, the hymn O nata lux, the Pentecost sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus, and finally the Agnus Dei and Lux Aeterna itself.
Much of the tonal language is built on the modes of Gregorian chant and the polyphony of Josquin and Palestrina, so it speaks both ancient and familiar, even on first hearing. Over that foundation Lauridsen lays the warm, full harmonies of Contemporary American choral writing. The dynamics stay soft for long stretches, and allow time for dissonances to resolve in their own due course.
Listen, too, for echoes of Lauridsen’s earlier music. Short melodic fragments from his O Magnum Mysterium and from Contre qui, rose (his setting of a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke), are exchanged between the choir and the orchestra.
Our Ministry has spent the last nine weeks of Wednesday evenings learning this music, and I’m grateful to them and to all the members of our Music Ministry for that work.
Please join us, and bring with you the people you’ve lost. We sing for them too.
Lux aeterna luceat eis, Domine.
May eternal light shine upon them, O Lord.Patrick Hagen, Director of Parish Music Ministry
Requiem Mass
Join us Sunday, November 1st at 5 pm at St. Ignatius Church for an evening of prayer and music as our choir and ensemble lead us in American composer Morten Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna (1997).Drawing on the traditional Requiem and other sacred texts, this luminous work weaves together images of eternal light, Christ as Light, and the light of the Holy Spirit. Beginning with a prayer for rest for the departed, the music carries us gently through grief and consolation toward hope, ultimately transforming mourning into joyful praise.
Livestream of the liturgy of the liturgy will be available on YouTube.
The deadline for names submission has passed, and names submitted now will not be in the Requiem Mass Program, but can still be included at the Altar of Remembrance.