A new requiem performed by choir
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Mack Wilberg's star grew a bit more luminous April 27-28, as his newly composed "Wilberg Requiem" was premiered by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square.
The event was part of the Salt Lake Tabernacle Concert Series Gala, an array of performances this season celebrating the reopening of the Tabernacle following its recent extensive remodeling and seismic upgrade.
Brother Wilberg, associate director of the choir, is perhaps best known in the Church as a prolific arranger of hymns and other choral works for the choir, such as "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing," "The Spirit of God," and "Redeemer of Israel."
In the first half of the program, Brother Wilberg himself conducted the orchestra, the Temple Square Chorale and four guest soloists in the historically enigmatic Mozart Requiem.
For the performance of Brother Wilberg's new work, his colleague, friend and admirer, Craig Jessop, Tabernacle Choir music director, took the baton.
"This evening represents a significant milestone in music composed by Latter-day Saint composers," Brother Jessop declared in introductory remarks to the audience. "Dr. Mack Wilberg has become a treasure among the Latter-day Saints, and indeed now the nation and the world."
Noting he is not just an arranger but a composer of great merit, Brother Jessop said, "Tonight, it's my feeling that the requiem of Mack Wilberg will enter the realm of significant Latter-day Saint compositions like LeRoy Robertson's 'Book of Mormon Oratorio,' or Robert Cundick's 'The Redeemer' or Merrill Bradshaw's 'The Restoration."'
The name Requiem is taken from the first word of the Latin introit, Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis, meaning, "Grant to them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them." Traditionally in the Roman Catholic Church, a Requiem is a mass for one or more deceased persons.
Brother Wilberg explained in a Church News interview that for his requiem, he chose to depart from this Catholic liturgical Requiem form, modeling his work instead after the Brahms Requiem, which is a setting of familiar scripture "that honors the dead and comforts the living."
Like the Brahms work, and unlike a liturgical Requiem, Brother Wilberg's composition employs English as well as Latin text.
Thus, it begins with the traditional Latin introit, then moves to an ancient Greek text, Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison, meaning "Lord have mercy, hear my cry; Christ have mercy, hear my cry."
The third, fourth, sixth and seventh movements are based on well-loved scriptural texts: Psalm 121 (I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help); Psalm 84 (How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts!); Psalm 23 (The Lord is my shepherd); and John 11 (I am the resurrection and the life).
He said he selected those texts because they are associated with solace and comfort.
Brother Wilberg wrote most of the requiem last summer during three weeks of seclusion in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts. "We had some connections there with the Berkshire Choral Festival," he explained.
"I was in an 1816 farmhouse during that time," he said. His only compositional tool was a spinet (a small, upright piano).
But the genesis of the work was earlier last year, with a commission from the Carnegie Hall Corp. to compose a prologue and epilogue to Ralph Vaughan Williams' Dona nobis pacem. Brother Jessop had been invited to conduct the Carnegie Hall High School Honor Choir and Orchestra of St. Luke's in the performance of the work. The beginning and ending pieces by Brother Wilberg were commissioned to fill out the program.
Following the successful Carnegie performance, Brother Jessop suggested to Brother Wilberg that the prologue, based on the traditional Latin introit, could be incorporated into a full-fledged requiem.
E-mail to: rscott@desnews.com
