Lacrimosa
Instrumentation
Duration
Program Notes
Lacrimosa is a setting of the Lacrimosa portion of the traditional Requiem Mass. I felt that the text could stand on its own, so I made a whole piece out of it. This piece shows some of my earlier experiments with Stravinskian harmonies and rhythms. Still, it’s one of my better works from that rather early period, so I’ve kept it here. It is written entirely using a nonatonic scale, symmetrically composed of three groups of semitones (B-C-Db, Eb-E-F, G-Ab-A).
The piece is divided into three sections. Each starts with the mezzo singing the “Lacrimosa” theme. The first section introduces the main B-B-B-B A-B-B-Db B theme in a lugubrious setting. The second section is declamatory, with three sets of fifths in the brass and woodwinds representing God, the Son and the Holy Spirit, followed by a fugato representing Man’s futile efforts to justify Himself, and finally God (represented by the mezzo-soprano) pronouncing a guilty verdict. Finally, the music reaches a climax at the beginning of the third section, after which a slow “Pie Jesu” rises in a peaceful inversion of the traditional “Dies Irae” theme.