When the Church chooses to renew its historic position as a patron of the arts by commissioning new sacred music for the liturgy, a composer’s task changes. Unlike works purely for the concert stage, music for liturgy is not (or should not be) primarily a vehicle for the composer to project some “originality” of artistic vision. The composer’s task is music that serves to deepen participation in the Holy Mass through inner illumination of the texts.
In composing the <em>Requiem for the Forgotten</em> and the <em>Messe des Malades</em>, my task was to link the liturgical music to the subjects reflected in the titles of these works: the homeless, the refugee, the sick; people that, too often, we would rather not think about. The gestation period was long as I was forced to reflect on core questions. How are we linked to our fellow suffering humans? Just what is our relationship to the unhoused person, to the refugee escaping war or political oppression, to those suffering illness?
For the <em>Messe des Malades</em>, I was inspired by memories of my sister Carin, who waged a heroic battle with multiple sclerosis. She was courageous, possessed of an iron will, with not a shred of self-pity. I have never admired anyone more: strength tempered with humility.
The most poignant moment in a Mass for the Sick is just after the sermon, when the <em>malades</em> (those who come seeking healing, as at the Shrine of Lourdes in France) receive an anointing from the bishop or priest. At the premiere of this mass at Oakland, I was one of the <em>malades</em>: I became seriously ill with peritonitis about halfway through composing the <em>Messe des Malades</em>. I can testify to the tenderness of this anointing ritual, and chose my motet “<em>Ego sum pastor bonus</em>” to accompany it at the premiere.
The <em>Agnus Dei </em>gave me a lot of trouble. What you hear on the new recording released by Cappella Records is the last of four different versions I wrote – and the only one I wrote post-appendicitis. I needed to be brought low in order to take up the tune “Immaculate Mary.” Cherished as it is, thanks to its long association with Our Lady of Lourdes, it was not a tune I regarded as musically interesting – until I tried it in a minor key. This quickly unlocked the music of this movement: I would use minor-key “Immaculate Mary” as an introduction and refrain and, tracing a path from darkness to light – from illness to healing, if you will – lead to a brief, radiant climax in a bright major key. “<em>Dona nobis pacem</em>” is set to the last two phrases of that tune, completing it and the Mass.
If anything, the <em>Requiem for the Forgotten</em> (originally “for the Homeless”) had an even more difficult gestation period. I knew very few homeless people, or refugees for that matter. I could not at first reconcile the grand Requiem Masses of Mozart, Verdi, Victoria with the distraught and lonely subjects for whom and about whom I was to compose. Dr Thomas McLaughlin came to my rescue. He shared his many experiences treating the homeless, telling me: “This is going to change you.” I realised I was resisting embracing the subject, much as I told myself otherwise. I also realised I had been coming about it from the wrong perspective.
I had been plagued by the thought that my music could not accomplish any tangible good for someone on the streets. Then it hit me deep in my bones: anything I could do must be grounded in something larger than a utilitarian calculus; it must rest ultimately in a special kind of faith: faith in the equal dignity of every human life. “Music not for their bodies, but for their souls” is the thought that came to me – it was, after all, a Requiem.
And so, the Introit has all the gravity and majesty one might expect for a very important person. From God’s point of view, the addict dying on the street is equal in significance to the King of England: “…as long as you did it for one of these my least brethren, you did it for Me.”
This is not a Requiem based on the pattern that Mozart, Verdi and Victoria had available to them. The contemporary “Rite of Christian Burial” does not include, for example, the <em>Dies Irae</em> – a great loss, in my opinion. So, in the <em>Kyrie</em> – which features petitions on behalf of the homeless – I smuggled in the “<em>Dies irae</em>” Gregorian chant, setting the words “<em>Kyrie, eleison</em>” to the same notes as the chanted “<em>dies irae, dies illa</em>”; and setting “<em>Christe, eleison</em>” to the chant for “<em>solvet saeclum in favilla</em>”. The final tutti “<em>Kyrie, eleison</em>” finds these two chant phrases superimposed in counterpoint, “<em>dies irae…</em>” in the choral melody and “<em>solvet saeclum…</em>” in Viola I and organ.
The poet James Matthew Wilson provided the text of “A Hymn for Ukraine”. Wilson pays tribute to several martyrs of Soviet Communism including the martyred Fr Andrei Ischak who, rather than abandon his parish, refused to flee the approaching Red Army soldiers, saying “…the shepherd doesn’t abandon his flock. And I can’t leave my parishioners and conceal myself.” He was executed by the Communists in 1941, and beatified by Pope St John Paul II in 2001. I am the child of a Ukrainian mother whose parents fled the Bolsheviks in Ukraine, so I was deeply honoured to set this new hymn to music. With its refrain “This we bring You with our loss, for Your altar and Your cross”, it can be used at the Offertory in a liturgical setting.
In <em>O Vos Omnes</em>, we hear the voice of the homeless and refugees themselves, imploring those who “pass by” to see their suffering – and to see them as creatures made by God, possessed of immortal souls of immeasurable worth.
The text is from the Book of Lamentations 1:12, which chronicles the aftermath of the Fall of Jerusalem at the hands of the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar. With the destruction of Solomon’s Temple the ancient Israelites lost their spiritual, political and financial centre of power, thrusting them into a state of profound doubt about their entire identity as God’s chosen people.
The text moves from states of incredulity and grief to pleas for solace and expressions of remorse. I have tried to capture some of this volatile mix of emotions with a variety of devices: accusatory exclamations, dizzy/wandering chromatic movements, songful laments and bitter major/minor polarities.
The piece does not attempt to bring the narrative to any kind of resolution at its end. Grief and loss linger in the quiet but unsettling final sonorities, captured by the wailing melody in the tenor solo on the words “my pain”. This melody centres around a G-major harmony while the choral background sustains G-minor. The tenor phrases end on a B-natural, conflicting with the B-flat in the minor-key chorus, symbolising his inability to enter into their “world”: he is an outcast, and alone.
But where there is God, there is hope.
A tenor solo also begins the final movement, “<em>Pie Jesu</em>”. Here the soloist pleads to the Lord of mercy. He is joined by a companion alto soloist, and together they are brought into the full choral texture. The music speaks not of bitter despair, but rather of hopeful anticipation. And it comes to rest in the final “Amen” on the G-major harmony that was denied resolution at the end of <em>O Vos Omnes</em>. <em>Requiem Aeternam</em>.
I am sharing these reflections in the hope they spark more interest among people of faith, especially prelates, pastors and patrons, in taking back the historic role of the Christian Church in commissioning magnificent new music for the Mass.
When we show that the Church’s great tradition is a living one, it is inspiring to people of faith, across denominational lines. And this music stirs and captivates souls, evangelising in a unique way.
God bless those in leadership roles who carry forward the great sacred-music traditions of the Church. But the question remains: will others follow?
<em>Frank La Rocca is the composer-in-residence at the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy. The two masses described here are available from CappellaRecords.com</em>
<strong><strong>This article originally appeared in the May 2024 issue of the <em>Catholic Herald</em>. To subscribe to our award-winning, thought-provoking magazine and have independent and high-calibre counter-cultural Catholic journalism delivered to your door anywhere in the world click</strong> <mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color"><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1">h</a></mark><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/subscribe/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">ere</mark></a>.</strong>
