Requiem (1994)
(for chamber chorus, strings, piano and triangle)

Requiem is dedicated to the memory of my good friend, Peeter Lilje (1950–1993), the long-time chief conductor of the Estonian State Symphony Orchestra. I have somewhat shortened the liturgical text of the catholic mass for the dead and from the structural point of view I have regarded this work not as a cycle but rather as an integral whole. Requiem begins with a quasi-Gregorian monody of the bass voices; the surrounding texture of the strings gradually grows and thickens. While the character of the vocal line does not essentially change in the beginning, the surrounding sound-space gradually develops toward greater intensity and, by the end of “Kyrie”, achieves even a certain aggressiveness. In “Dies Irae”, the choral texture is divided into parts, in “Tuba mirum” the rhythm becomes more energetic and the harmony more complex and strained. The piano consistently presents a “third dimension”, playing motifs built on the serial principle, or clusters and sounds produced by using timpani sticks or brushes directly on the strings. “Rex tremendae” is the first and at the same time the biggest culmination. Here a kind of breaking takes place which should be followed by the slowly opening passage to the everlasting, to clarification and peace. 

Erkki-Sven Tüür
^{(Taken from CD liner notes ECM 1590)}