Requiem for the Living
Stunned Silence
Our dog Ruby and I were driving to Lake Michigan on Pentecost Sunday when stunningly beautiful music nearly canceled our trip. Turning on the car radio, I suddenly realized that Blue Lake Public Radio was rebroadcasting a live performance by the Grand Rapids Symphony and Chorus. On April 12 and 13, to celebrate Pearl Shangkuan’s twenty years as Chorus Director, the orchestra and choir had performed the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) by Johannes Brahms and Requiem for the Living by Dan Forrest. I had sung in those concerts. But I didn’t remember one would be rebroadcast on May 19.
When the hushed tones of Forrest’s Requiem began, I almost stopped the car. The purity and longing in the orchestral opening called for full attention. But I had promised Ruby time to swim and fetch at the Kirk Park dog beach. So onward we drove. Upon reaching the park, we remained in the car until the music ended. And there I stayed a little longer, in stunned silence, just like the audiences who heard our performances in April.
Dr. Pearl Shangkuan, Director of the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus
Only recently have I entered the thrall of this music. When Shirley Lemon, President of the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus, emailed in late January to invite me to join the chorus for this occasion, I had never heard Forrest’s Requiem. I had sung some of his shorter anthems, however, and found some unduly saccharine. Also, I knew of his evangelical background (he’s a graduate of Bob Jones University); for political and religious reasons that I’ve discussed in previous posts, this made me wary. Still, I really wanted to sing with Dr. Shangkuan, an internationally esteemed choral conductor and educator. I’ve long admired the Symphony Chorus’s performances under her direction. So I said yes, a decision I’ll never regret.
Brahms and Fauré
Traditionally, requiems are musical settings of sections from the mass commemorating those who have died and praying for their repose. Many well-known composers have written such large-scale works. Among those closest in spirit to Forrest’s Requiem are A German Requiem, Op. 45 (written 1865-1868) by Johannes Brahms and the Requiem, Op. 48 (1887-1890) by Gabriel Fauré.
Like Brahms, Forrest incorporates biblical texts that lie outside the traditional Catholic mass for the dead, and he devotes his composition’s second movement, titled Vanitas Vanitatem (Vanity of Vanities), to the tension between futility and hope. Like Fauré, Forrest begins his requiem in D minor and omits the traditional Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), with its emphasis on fear and judgment—although, again like Fauré, Forrest does retain gentle words from its last section, namely, “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem” (Merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest). And, like both Brahms and Fauré, Forrest employs a soprano soloist, although unlike them his male soloist is a tenor rather than a baritone.
Prayer for Healing
Forrest deliberately calls his composition, written in 2013, Requiem for the Living. As his program notes explain, it is to be performed “just as much for the living, and their own struggle with pain and sorrow, as for the dead.” That’s exactly what happened in April. From the chorus’s solemn “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine” (Give them eternal rest, O Lord) at the beginning to its gently fading away on “Dona nobis pacem” (Give us peace) at the end, we offered a heartfelt prayer for healing.
Photo by Illiya Vjestica on Unsplash
I’ll always remember the prolonged silence that hovered like angel wings over all of us, musicians and audience alike, when the music ended on opening night. An entire minute seemed to pass before enthusiastic applause broke out. The reverent stillness felt like the peace and eternal rest for which we had just sung.
Many elements go into such a sublime collective experience. I can attest to the inspiring, thoughtful, and meticulous rehearsals led by Pearl Shangkuan and Marcello Lehninger, the symphony’s Music Director. The singers and instrumentalists poured themselves into this project. And the audience came prepared to let the music speak to their hearts. Many cried during the performance, and even more told us afterwards how deeply it had touched them.
What especially interests me is how the musical score lays groundwork for all of this. To be passionate and eloquent, concert music must be carefully crafted. Three things strike me as crucial for making this forty-minute composition an extended prayer for healing: textual nuance, cyclical patterns, and harmonic structure.
Let me say something about each and give a few examples, hoping that you’ll find time to listen to the entire performance I’ve linked by the Rivertree Singers. [Readers who want to dive into the compositional weeds, where I would also happily swim, should consult “The Power of Three in Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living,” an astute master’s thesis written by Lindsey Lanee Cope at the University of Tennessee (2015); it’s available online at the following link.]
Textual Nuance
Forrest’s Requiem has five movements:
1. Introit – Kyrie (Entrance and Kyrie)
2. Vanitas Vanitatem (Vanity of Vanities)
3. Agnus Dei (Lamb of God)
4. Sanctus (Holy, Holy, Holy)
5. Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light)
In every movement he either modifies or replaces the traditional text of the requiem mass. He also switches the order of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei so that the Sanctus becomes a response to the deliverance fervently requested in the Agnus Dei. Let me summarize the most important textual revisions, using the number for each movement.
Movement 1 drops lines that refer to Zion and Jerusalem. 2 replaces the Dies Irae with passages from Ecclesiastes and Job about the futility of life, even as it retains traces of the Dies Irae by interpolating the “Pie Jesu” (Merciful Jesus) line mentioned earlier. 3 inserts “dona nobis pacem” (grant us peace) and drops the phrase “requiem sempiternam” (eternal rest). 4 omits the sentence “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini” (Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord). Movement 5 replaces the traditional “Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum: quia pius es” (With your saints for evermore, for you are gracious) with a tenor solo in English or, during international performances, in the audience’s own primary language. The solo quotes the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:28: “Come unto me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” This last movement also ends with words, already inserted into the Agnus Dei movement, that are not in the traditional Lux Aeterna text: “Dona nobis pace” (Grant us peace).
Source: Cope, “The Power of Three, p. 24.
The cumulative effect of these textual revisions is to place us, the musicians and listeners, in the middle of the mass. It is we who ask for peace, and we do not await death to receive it. Rather, we both utter and hear a call to embrace rest and healing now. This is a side of contemporary evangelicalism even the wariest among us can accept. During our performances in April, I too was moved by the translucent tenor voice (Jesus) climbing and falling, climbing and falling, and climbing still higher, until it lands on “rest”—at the exact moment when the chorus begins its final iterations of “Requiem aeternam” (listen to minutes 34:34 – 35:44 in the linked recording). We feel called to respond: Yes, give us rest.
Cyclical Patterns
Cyclical patterns reinforce the call to embrace healing rest. The score begins and ends with two measures of rests. So even before the music begins, we enter a world of quiet contemplation; at the end we return to the silence where we began. Similarly, the first extremely quiet sounds from the orchestra are three whole-note chords in D minor (min. 0:44 – 0:59). The same chords return in F major as the opening to the fourth movement (Sanctus, min. 23:34 – 23:46). Moreover, the last movement (Lux Aeterna) ends with similar chords (min. 39:11 – 39:29), but now in E major and resolving upward rather than downward. You might not know the music theory that explains these passages, but you can experience their combined effect: they take us from mystery to magnificence to rest.
To such cycling at the very beginning and end one could add many other instances. Indeed, three of the movements (2, 3, and 5) are themselves cyclical, having what musicians call a ternary form (ABA’): after a contrasting middle section in a different key, the third section in each movement returns to the material of its first section. A ternary piece is inherently cyclical—it ends like it begins. The other two movements (1 and 4) also have three sections, but the last section contrasts with the other two (ABC). Although not cyclical, strictly speaking, such tripartite form also gives a strong sense of completion.
Consider, for example, the fourth movement, which is in ABC form (min. 23:34 – 26:21 on the recording). Here’s the movement’s text with English translation:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Holy, Holy, Holy,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Lord God of Hosts.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in excelsis! Hosanna in the highest!
Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2009, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The composer tells us that the three sections (A, B, and C) of the Sanctus movement are inspired by “three different glimpses” of how heaven and earth overflow with God’s glory: images of outer space inspire the “ethereal opening section” [measures (mm.) 1-45, min. 23:34 – 26:22]; images of earth from the International Space Station give rise to the “stirring middle section” (mm. 46-103, min. 26:22 – 28:39); and pictures of cities teeming with humanity bring us “down to Earth” in the closing section (mm. 104-171, min. 28:40 – 30:56). Each section builds internally, and each new section is more dramatic than the previous one; by the end we feel we’ve reached our destination.
The A-section opens in the key of F major with high, distant, twinkling sixteenth notes played by harp and glockenspiel. It gradually grows as new voices enter—first the women in unison, next the men on the same melody with different words, and then all voices in harmony on the words “Sanctus … Dominus.” In measure 45 (min. 26:22), section A merges into the B-section, which is faster and in a different key. It replaces orchestral sixteenth notes with quarter notes, and it uses more vocal counterpoint. This section builds to broader, more majestic, and louder statements in yet another key (mm. 76-99, min. 27:41 – 28:27), until it peaks in the new key of D major on the words “Pleni sunt caeli et terra” (Heaven and earth are full of your glory; mm. 100-103, min. 28:28 – 28:40). Section C remains in D major as the orchestra returns to the sixteenth notes of section A, but now in driving rhythms “with ecstatic energy.” Singing within an urban hubbub, the chorus ends with a nearly shouted, sustained “Hosanna,” reinforced by the triple-forte orchestra relentlessly churning ahead (mm. 167-171, min. 30:44 – 30:56). After this emphatic climax, there’s nowhere left to go but to the peaceful opening of the Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) movement, which begins on a low D.
Harmonic Structure
Although less obvious than textual nuances and cyclical patterns, the harmonic structure of Forrest’s composition is just as crucial to its being a genuine requiem for the living. The entire work is constructed from what music theorists call “mediant relationships.” These are connections among chords whose roots are separated by either a major or a minor third. (A minor third is common in children’s singsong, such as the notes to “a-round” in “Ring around the Rosie.”) So, for example, a C major chord (C-E-G, with C as the root) has a mediant relationship to an A minor chord (A-C-E, with A as the root)—their roots (C and A) are separated by a minor third. Lindsey Lanee Cope’s master’s thesis demonstrates this in glorious detail, so I’ll spare you a deep dive into music theory.
But just consider the harmonic structure of the first movement, the Introit – Kyrie. It begins and ends in D minor. Its brief middle section, however, to the words “Exaudi orationem meam, ad te omnis caro veniet” (Hear my prayer, for unto you all flesh shall come), hovers between D major and B minor, and the root of B minor is a minor third removed from the root of D (mm. 75-103, min. 5:30 – 7:15). This relationship of a minor third is precisely the shape of the choir’s first three notes (F-E-D) to the word “Requiem” (mm. 36-37, min. 2:59 – 3:06). In unison, the choir descends a minor third from F through E to D, a pattern already announced by the second violins at the very beginning of the piece (mm. 3-5, min. 0:45 – 0:58).
Source: Cope, “The Power of Three,” p. 31.
Cope calls this pattern “motive A” (p. 31). It occurs 21 times in the first and third sections of this movement, and it recurs in all other movements. Also, nearly all the harmonic relationships between and within movements are mediant ones of a minor third. Historically, the minor third has been used to convey sadness. A falling minor third that lands, as motive A does, on the root of the predominant key (i.e., D minor in the first two movements) also conveys coming to rest.
Sadness and Hope
Coming to rest in sadness, but also in hope: that describes the spirit of Requiem for the Living. Forrest’s work is consummately crafted to achieve a collective experience of healing and rest. If you find yourself weary and heavy laden, listen to it again, and embrace the solace it offers.
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