Requiem – Opus 19 (1974)

Paul Patterson and the Requiem
(programme note from performance in 1979)

Paul Patterson is emerging as one of Britain’s most successful young composers. At only 28 he already has an astonishing list of important commissions and performances, he has been represented at many festivals including Bath and Edinburgh, and has had works performed by such orchestras as the N.P.O., R.P.O., E.C.O. and BBC S.O., as well as many broadcasts on radio and television. His “Time Piece” written for the Kings Singers has recently been released on E.M.I. and a whole disc of his music is being recorded later this year for the same Company.

In spite of his many activities he finds time to teach at Warwick University and to be a professor at the Royal Academy of Music. He is writing a musical “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” for BBC T.V. and is currently working on a commission for the BBC S.O. which he will conduct in a Robert Mayer Concert at the Royal Festival Hall next year. He has a close connection with the London Chorale; his Kyrie and Gloria were both commissioned by them, and they will record the two works later this year.

Patterson’s dramatic Requiem is written for chorus, symphony orchestra and boys’ voices. It embraces a wide variety of choral and instrumental writing, employing both old and new methods of notation and there are periods of free writing, some serial and some tonal. The choir often merges into the orchestral texture, making the voices act as instruments, also newer vocal techniques explore the more unusual facets of the human voice. The Requiem is in memory of the late President Kennedy and includes verses from the book of Ecclesiastes, which contains the text often referred to by John F. Kennedy in his speeches, one of which was the historic Cuban missile speech of 1962. The Dies Irae symbolises the last hours in Dallas when he was brutally assassinated and at this point simulated rifle shots from the orchestra and screams from the choir can be heard.

It is in six movements, the opening Requiem Aeternam beginning with an atmospheric whispering and breathing, which represents the last moments of life on earth. Swirling glissandi on the lower strings and a concentration on the tone colours of the male voices suggest dark ethereal clouds.

The Kyrie is a contrast in texture, the women’s voices being emphasised in a representation of mourning against a backwash of string sound. The relative calm is shattered in the violent and rhythmic Sanctus.

This is followed by a gentle unaccompanied setting of Ecclesiastes, leading without a break into the wild and bizarre Dies Irae. Here, all explodes to a mass hysteria as the wrath of God (the assassin’s gun) passes judgment on mankind. A combination of screams and shouts from the choir and violent scrapings behind the bridges of the strings, brings the section to a shattering climax, which is then followed by a deathly silence.

The In Paradisum, progressing through major keys and using boys’ voices and tuned percussion, suggests the heavenward journey of the spirit, and the work concludes with a reference to the Requiem Aeternam and the final breath of life.

——

Text

Requiem Aeternam
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine;
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam;
Ad te omnis caro veniet.

Kyrie
Kyrie eleison;
Christe eleison;
Kyrie eleison.

Sanctus
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus
Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.

Ecclesiastes
To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die.
A time to heal.
A time to weep and a time to laugh.
A time to love, and a time to hate.
A time of war, and a time of peace.

Dies Irae
Dies irae, dies illa,
calamitatis et miseriae;
dies magna et amara valde.

In Paradisum
In paradisum deducant angeli;
in tuo adventu suscipiant te martyres
te perducant te in civitatem sanctum Jerusalem.
Chorus angelorum te suscipiat,
et cum Lazaro quondam paupere,
aeternam habeas requiem.

Requiem aeternam

Translation
External rest grant them, O Lord,
and let perpetual light shine on them.
A hymn O God becometh three in Sion
and a vow shall be paid to Thee in Jerusalem.
O Lord, hear my prayer;
all flesh shall come to Thee.

Lord, have mercy;
Christ, have mercy;
Lord, have mercy.

Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts.
Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory
Hosanna in the highest

Ecclesiastes
To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven.
A time to be born, and a time to die.
A time to heal.
A time to weep and a time to laugh.
A time to love, and a time to hate.
A time of war, and a time of peace.

That day, a day of wrath,
of calamity and of misery;
a great day and exceeding bitter

May the angels receive thee in paradise;
at thy coming may the martyrs
receive thee, and bring thee into
the Holy City – Jerusalem.
There may the choir of angels
receive thee and with Lazarus,
once a begger, may thou have
eternal rest.

Eternal rest

————

Review from 1979 performance

Paul Patterson’s REQUIEM has similar qualities of youthful confidence and technical command to those we encounter in early Scriabin. The resemblances don’t end there: there is an equal sincerity shading off into showiness, an equally skilful combination of different kinds of contemporary writing within basically traditional forms; an equal inability or unwillingness as yet, to transcend those forms’ limitations – new wine in old

bottles in fact. A wide range of orchestral and choral effects, not unreminiscent of things one has heard in Ligeti, Penderecki, Stockhausen and others, are deployed within a harmonic idiom which might derive from Messiaen by way of Rovhaness, and the result is a clearly “modern’ yet effective, substantial and approachable Requiem which can appeal to a large audience: something no doubt, that the choral repertoire needs.

Yet the work impressed me principally as a ‘tour de force’, a display-piece in handling diverse techniques rather than music with a strong spiritual component – whatever the impulse behind its composition may have been. Perhaps the best part of Patterson’s REQUIEM was the final In Paradisum, which created still, ‘timeless’, reverberating sonic landscape.

Calum MacDonald
THE LISTENER
31st July 1979