A Sacred Sextet In Time Of Terror

Stephen Hough (b. 1961)

Requiem aeternam (for String Sextet)
After Requiem (1605) by Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548 – 1611)

I Taedet animum
II Kyrie
III Graduale
IV Versa est
V Libera me

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Easter Sunday (Eastern and Western Christian) 6:30 PM FREE

"Asked by the National Gallery in London to compose music for the exhibition The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600 – 1700, Stephen Hough took as his inspiration one of the great works of Tomás Luis de Victoria, a composer who was an older contemporary of the artists represented in the exhibition. He recast and reworked Victoria’s Requiem of 1605, making it a five-movement suite for string sextet. The treatment varies from movement to movement, ranging from straight transcription in the fourth movement, Versa est, to interpolation of new material in the form of variations in the last movement, Libera me."

Program

Header credit: Two of the more than fifty-two human victims and perpetrators of terrorism over the winter of 2010. (c) NewsTeam, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images 2010.