Where does one begin with writing a requiem. Listen to the requiems of Mozart or Beethoven of course. Well, not for me. The requiem mass has always, or should I say is more commonly associated with glorious rhythms, and lavish noise that soars to the skies and cries out passionately, which I one interpretation of the texts, most of them are simply wonderful and latin is indeed an expressive language.

However, I have recently discovered an 11th century composer who, for me, composed the absolute epitome of religious music, and her name was Hildegard Von Bingen. Her rendition of Kyrie Eleison (look it up on Youtube) is simple in execution (virtuosic in vocal technique somewhat) and yet still soars to the skies in a cushion of softness and relaxation. This is what I want to achieve with my requiem, I’m keeping it a simple as possible, with a more conservative approach than my other choral works (which are pretty complex in parts).

The trick is to create these simple works without letting them be boring, and for each piece to have a theme.

I have so far written three of the 14 pieces I have planned. The first was the Gradual, which I am dedicated to all fallen soldiers, ‘Grant unto them eternal rest’ and that stuff. I have finished a Kyrie Eleison, modeling it on that of Hildegard, however with a few differences, Hilde’s was a contralto solo (I think, may be an alto) whereas mine is a soprano solo with piano accompaniment. I have also finished a prelude, this work with have both a prelude and an exlude (a sort of outro, but I invented a word for it.)

Another hard work bit of this is, as I will write each piece separately, I won’t really know how it all fits together until the very end. I don’t like writing up a strict plan, every time I do, I end up with a bit of adlib here, a bit of improv there, and it ends up completely different, but perfect in it’s own way. The desert of Ghosts was one of those times. I tried one thing, though naa, and hey presto, came up with some other technique.

Requiem shall be available soon. I hope.