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Howard Goodall's Eternal Light: A Requiem Across North America

Oct. 29, 2014

Howard Goodall's <em>Eternal Light: A Requiem</em> Across North America

Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light: A Requiem receives several performances this month to coincide with Remembrance Day events across the country. To date, the piece has been performed over 300 times worldwide, a testament to the tremendous power of the work. Eternal Light was commissioned by London Musici, who gave the premiere in 2008 with choreography performed by the Rambert Dance Company. Of the work, Goodall writes:

[Eternal Light: A Requiem is] intended to provide solace to the grieving, reflecting on the words of the Latin Mass by juxtaposing them with poems in English. For me, a modern Requiem is one that acknowledges the unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife. This, like Brahms’, is a Requiem for the living, addressing their suffering and endurance, a Requiem focusing on the consequences of interrupted lives.
 

Performances take place at the Glen Ridge Congregational Church in New Jersey, the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Gainesville, Florida and St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Houston, Texas on November 2, as well as by the Slavic Chorale at the House of Bread Church in Orangevale, California on November 9, and by the McMaster University Choir on November 22 at the Central Presbyterian Church in Ontario, Canada. Additionally, Goodall’s Love Divine, for chorus and organ, receives a performance on November 20 at the National Association of Episcopal Schools in New York.

Earlier this year, the premiere of Goodall’s Sure of the Sky, Sure of the Sun - Des Himmels sicher, der Sonne sicher was at the center of one of the UK’s main World War I centenary events. The event took place at the St. Symphorien Military Cemetery in Mons, Belgium with 500 guests including the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Prince Harry and David Cameron. The premiere featured singers from the London Symphony Chorus and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Choir, and musicians from The Coldstream Guards, conducted by Simon Halsey.

Visit fabermusic.com for more information on Howard Goodall.

Howard Goodall
Eternal Light: A Requiem (2008)
text (En, Lat) by Ann Thorp, John Henry Newman, Mary Elizabeth Frye, John McCrae, Phineas Fletcher and from the Reiqem Mass
for soprano, tenor/baritone, SATB chorus and orchestra
2kybd.hp(optional)-str
reduced orchestration version: pno.org.hp
40’

Love Divine (2000)
text (En) by Charles Wesley
for chorus (SSAA or SATB) and organ/piano
5’

Sure of the Sky, Sure of the Sun - Des Himmels sicher, der Sonne sicher (2014)
for choir and brass ensemble
text (En, Ger) by Charlotte Mew and Goldfeld (discovered, edited and translated by Peter C. Appelbaum)
cornet.flugelhn.tenor hn(or French hn).euph.tba
5’

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