Remembering: Duruflé's Requiem

Sunday, October 29, 2023 | 4 PM

Church of the Covenant
67 Newbury St.
Boston, MA 02116

Maurice Duruflé's Requiem, completed in 1947, encourages deep reflection on the human experience and the ultimate mystery of death. The Requiem is built exclusively on the Gregorian Mass for the Dead, creating a thoroughly modern expression of an ancient music form within the Catholic Church.  Many consider the Requiem to be Duruflé's greatest achievement.

American-Canadian composer Zachary Wadsworth brings us a newly commissioned work called Faces of the Past, complementing Duruflé's Requiem by exploring themes of Memory, Faith, and Time.

Unclouded Day, a look toward better days ahead, was inspired by a striking vision of the sky: a rainbow against a dark cloud which covered half the sky, while the other half was perfectly clear.

Program:

KIRCHNER Unclouded Day

WADSWORTH Faces of the Past
Jennifer Webb, mezzo-soprano

DURUFLÉ Requiem
Lauren Guthridge, mezzo-soprano
James Liu, bass

A Note from the Composer:

"Ever since I first sang it in college, I've been an enormous fan of Duruflé's Requiem — I was immediately won over by its richness, its elegance, and its timeless use of Gregorian chant. So when I was approached to compose a companion piece to Duruflé, I leapt at the opportunity. My piece, Faces of the Past, uses text by the wonderful American poet and personality Mercedes de Acosta to interrogate rituals of remembrance like Requiems, and to investigate how the living can be at once comforted and haunted by the past." — Zachary Wadsworth