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Douglas Major’s Requiem Mass, world premiere
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CONCERT REVIEW Douglas Major’s Requiem Mass in C minor. Friday at All Saints’ Episcopal Church on West Peachtree Street in Midtown.
A Requiem is a mass for the dead, but like any memorial, it often tells us more about the living — our attitudes to life, death and the beyond, our societal attitudes, our ambitions for the future.
Douglas Major’s Requiem Mass in C minor, given its world premiere Friday evening at All Saints’ Episcopal Church, makes a point of capturing a bygone era. Across 50 minutes, its sense of nostalgia is palpable.
Indeed, this Requiem is beautifully crafted and betrays few signs of its 21st century creation. Aside from flickers of harmonic thorniness — and one notable “blues” moment — the music could have been written a century ago. Its baggage is the post-postmodern sensibility of our age: ignore the past 90 years of cultural upheaval, ignore the cynicism brought on by world wars, modernism and the Sixties.
Scored for string quintet, choir and organ, the Requiem’s 11 movements feature brief, affecting vocal solos (sung by members of the choir.) Most compelling is Major’s lovely, intricate writing for the string ensemble, often evoking a pastoral landscape — not surprising for music tapping the Episcopal-Anglican tradition.
The composer, who conducted the performance, also hints at famous Requiems. The “Kyrie’s” counterpoint and rich choral textures suggest Mozart. There’s a bit of Berlioz in the “Dies Irae,” except here the wrath of Judgment Day is a Gothic statement with a drop of kitsch, more carnival fun-house than fire and brimstone.
Major spent 14 years as organist and choirmaster at the Washington National Cathedral. Although he now lives in Massachusetts, there is an Atlanta connection for this Requiem: All Saints’ organists Raymond and Elizabeth Chenault worked under Major in Washington, and they invited him to give a recital in June 2004, as part of the inaugural events for All Saints’ new, 87-rank pipe organ built by Jean-Paul Buzard.
Not long before that recital, the mother of All Saints’ chorister Paul Hamaty had passed away. Major was commissioned to write the Requiem as a memorial, which he spent 11 months composing. This substantial work, a credit to the All Saints’ music program, should rightfully enter its repertoire. The work also serves as a benchmark for other Atlanta music organizations, where commissioning and performing new music should be central to the mission.
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By Jack O'Brien
November 2, 2005 1:04 PM | Link to this
This was a night to remember. The Req