The thought began quite some time ago with someone in an online church musician group where I’m a member. They mentioned how hard it was to find any music for atheists and agnostics’ funerals and asked for suggestions. Funeral music seems to be exclusively religious: eternal life in heaven, the love of God, etc. The recommendations were a collection of show tunes and pop songs. I noticed that there weren’t really many (any?) songs that equaled the liturgical works of the old masters or even more current hymns and church music. It appeared to be a significant gap in the existing repertoire. As a composer, that thought became a background “maybe someday—if I find the right texts” future project.
An atheist friend, who is a truly lovely person with an excellent voice, mentioned in passing that singing sacred music makes them feel uncomfortable. They can “handle” religious texts in Latin and non-English languages, but singing words of belief makes them feel dishonest.
A composer friend wrote a requiem—that was performed by our local symphony and symphony choir was well received.
I was reaching a significant age milestone. Too many of my age peers had already passed on. My “someday” thoughts became “If you’re going to do this, you’d better get serious,” and “If you write a requiem, will God/Fate/the universe decide you should die mid-composition—like Mozart and other classical composers?”
Another stimulus was when a choral director friend asked what new music was in my future. I said, “a requiem, if I can find the right text.” He immediately assumed some type of liturgical text or Brahams’ Requiem type Biblical lyrics. I said that I wanted to include the non-church audience as well. I’m not sure quite what he thought. His word “oh” didn’t seem to convey either approval or disapproval.
So, I started looking for those subjects in poetry that I read: poetry about life, music, nature, and our temporary existence. Yes, I asked my poet friends what they had written. Nothing seemed to fit. I didn’t really think the right texts would fall out of the sky. Or even if they did, would Ibe able to get permission to use those texts? Newer poetry is often problematic unless you personally know the author.
The tipping catalyst was talking with a non-religious musician friend who was obviously dying of liver cancer. When he mentioned his depression, I recounted my experience when writing my symphony The Constellations. I repeated my belief that music travels through nature, from even as far away as the stars. (See my blog post about discovering that what I had already written about stars resembled actual celestial frequencies, which I hadn’t heard before. Music from the Stars) I assured him that I believe music keeps traveling on. This was the prompt for my lyric, “Music Travels Onward,” which I set to music. It belonged in a requiem. It’s also the perfect music for my eventual memorial service.
Fast-forward to late 2024 when I realized my computer was almost defunct and that I should back up everything in several places—including hard copies in physical file cabinets. There were bits of poetry in randomly labeled computer files that needed to be organized. So, of course I reread all of them, edited, finished partial musings, backed up the files, and printed everything. The collection was much larger than I realized. I had already written three additional poems that fit; one of them was even titled “Requiem.” And… I didn’t need to track down the author to get permission to use them. I had already written and orchestrated an instrumental piece called “Lament for the Living” that would easily work as an interlude. The actual music for the rest of it had to wait until I got my new computer working. (Ugh. I hate dealing with new electronics.) The five requiem pieces prompted four more poems for the set. But my requiem-ish song cycle of nine, The Cycle of Life Turns, now awaits the orchestration.
P.S. I haven’t died.