Agnus Dei
Instrumentation: mixed choir and soloist (or children's choir)
Year Composed: 2015
Duration: 6 minutes
Program Notes:
In setting the Agnus Dei with unaccompanied voices, I felt connected to the history of this text in the hands of Medieval and Renaissance composers: Machaut, Dunstable, Dufay, Binchois, Ockeghem, and many others. I believe I have borrowed from their varied musical styles in this piece, but that borrowing has been mostly unconscious. I am interested in the threshold between conscious and unconscious influences in my music. I am especially interested in exploring the spaces between historic and modern styles, and in musical situations that blur the borders between disparate idioms.
Despite the sacred text, I don’t necessarily think of this piece as a sacred work. Because the text is ritualistic and not traditionally rhetorical, it frees me from some of the semantic concerns a composer faces with poetry and prose. In turn, it frees the listener from hearing the music in only one way.
The work was commissioned by Harold Rosenbaum and The New York Virtuoso Singers with support from ASCAP, and premiered at National Sawdust in November, 2015.
The work was commissioned by Harold Rosenbaum and The New York Virtuoso Singers with support from ASCAP, and premiered at National Sawdust in November, 2015.
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Agnus Dei
The New York Virtuoso Singers, Harold Rosenbaum, dir. with the Canticum Novum Youth Choir, Edith Rosenbaum, dir.
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