Morten Lauridsen 4309b | Songbook $7.95 | SATBĬhamber Choir of Europe : O Magnum Mysterium A quiet setting of the Agnus Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, which reprises the opening section of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful celebratory Alleluia. O Nata Lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus are paired songs, the former an a cappella motet at the center of the work and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. In Te, Domine, Speravi contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus Herzliebster Jesu (from the Nuremburg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on fiat misericordia. The opening Introitus introduces several themes that recur later in the work and includes an extended canon on et lux perpetua. The work opens and closes with the beginning and ending of the Requiem Mass, with the central three movements drawn respectively from the Te Deum, O Nata Lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus. I composed Lux Aeterna in response to my mother's final illness and found great personal comfort and solace in setting to music these timeless and wondrous words about Light, a universal symbol of illumination at all levels - spiritual, artistic and intellectual.

Review: Each of the five connected movements in this choral cycle contains references to 'Light,' assembled from various sacred Latin texts.

O Magnum Mysterium, Dirait-on (from Les Chansons des Roses) and O Nata Lux (from Lux Aeterna) have become the all-time best-selling choral octavos distributed by Theodore Presser, in business since 1783.Ĭomposers - Early Music | Classical | 20th Century | Modern

His seven vocal cycles - Les Chansons des Roses (Rilke), Mid-Winter Songs (Graves), Cuatro Canciones (Lorca), A Winter Come (Moss), Madrigali: Six 'FireSongs' on Renaissance Italian Poems, Nocturnes, and Lux Aeterna - and his series of sacred a cappella motets (O Magnum Mysterium, Ave Maria, O Nata Lux, Ubi Caritas et Amor and Ave Dulcissima Maria) are featured regularly in concert by distinguished ensembles throughout the world.

The music of Morten Johannes Lauridsen, composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994-2001 and professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than thirty years, occupies a permanent place in the standard vocal repertoire of the Twentieth Century.

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