Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford / London Musici / Stephen Darlington HOWARD GOODALL Eternal Light

Eternal Light: A Requiem was commissioned by London Musici to celebrate its 20th anniversary. It was commissioned as both a choral-orchestral-dance piece for London Musici, The Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and Rambert Dance Company and as a choral-orchestral work. Most requiems are based. one way or another, on the medieval church’s Mass for the Dead, which is made up of a series of sections beginning with the ‘Kyrie Eleison’ and ending with ‘In Paradisum’. Although the traditional requiem text calls for ‘eternal peace, rest and light’ for those who have died, it also emphasises judgement and everlasting damnation for anyone who transgresses the Roman Catholic Church’s code of behaviour, as seen from the perspective of the Middle Ages. I did not feel at ease with this approach to the appalling pain of loss and grief, so in an attempt to provide some solace for the living that mourn, I stripped down the old Latin texts to a few phrases in each movement and laid beside them words from English poems from across the last 500 years. (Howard Goodall)