When the time is right

Back in 1983, I took a trip to Eastern Europe, which was then still the Soviet bloc. Upon my return, I put together a slide show presentation (with accompanying music on cassette tape—the cutting-edge technology of the time!) for our church peacebuilding group. During the section with photos from Auschwitz death camp, I played the "Lacrimosa" section of the "Dies Irae" from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.  It's a haunting piece with soprano solo above the mass choir.  The melody has lived in my mind ever since, rising up to accompany my darker moments.

Several years ago James started creating contemporary liturgies for Good Friday, using rock-and-roll, blues, country, and popular music with modern art images on PowerPoint (note the advances in technology!) to convey the message of the scriptures for that day.  In my mind I heard "Lacrimosa," in a spare, dark tone, and considered creating an arrangement to sing in the Good Friday liturgy.  But every year the liturgy took us in other directions without a place for "Lacrimosa," and I never ventured the suggestion, nor did I put the time into writing out the sounds I heard in my mind.

This year during our first conversation with our band, Between the Banks, about where we might go with the Good Friday liturgy, I pushed myself to blurt out, "There's a piece I've wanted to do for years but was never quite brave enough to suggest."  When I explained the piece and what it means, both literally (see the lyrics and translation below) and to me personally, everyone was very supportive and encouraged me to work it out.  And we found the perfect place for it in the liturgy, between Peter's triple betrayal of Jesus and Judas's suicide.  And a good friend and excellent musician (and bandmate in the Sister City Jazz Ambassadors), Andy, agreed to play the contrabass part.

So I've spent the past month scoring it for solo voice and contrabass, keeping Britten's melody line (significantly lowered to a range I can sing it in!) but taking the bass line in the direction I hear it rather than transcribing what the choir and orchestra do in the original.  When I listen to the original now, I hear that Britten's version has much more light and hope in it than mine—he changes to major-sounding chords where I keep it more minor and dissonant.  As Andy says, "It's SOOO sad."

Obviously this piece has been transformed by my life experience over the past three decades to a more plaintive, despairing lament, probably because of my early association of it with Auschwitz.  I felt no hope when we toured Auschwitz.  Even the roses at the entrance seemed sad.  Follow that with years of un- and undertreated depression and "Lacrimosa" becomes the anthem of dark despair.  And yet its beauty always keeps me alive, keeps me hanging on to the thin, pure line of hope in that solo voice.  Have mercy on us, O Lord.  Have mercy on me.

"Lacrimosa," from "Dies Irae" of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem

Lacrimosa dies illa,

Qua resurget ex favilla,

Judicandus homo reus,

Huic ergo parce Deus.

Tearful will be that day

On which from the ashes will rise

The guilty one for judgment.

So have mercy, O Lord, on this one.