Pacem

Commissioned and premiered by the Pasadena Master Chorale, Jeffrey Bernstein, director.

pacem
dona nobis pacem
da mihi pacem

peace
grant us peace
grant me peace

PROGRAM NOTE

For some reason, the nagging idea came to me that I had to write a setting of the Latin dona nobis pacem, a liturgical phrase meaning “grant us peace,” taken from the Agnus Dei of the ordinary mass. Usually, this phrase is meant as an address to a deity and is intended as a prayer for an end to wars, someday achieving world peace. My ideas that generated this music were not centered on this external prayer, but rather on the daily—and sometimes lifelong—internal struggles of individuals to achieve peace in their own lives, whether psychological, emotional, physical, or spiritual. This work therefore is intended as a musical expression of what it is like to be in the midst of these struggles, devoid of hope, and perhaps giving some kind of voice or paying respects to those I have known who have similarly struggled, yet not overcome.

The word pacem is the focus of the piece, and it is systematically split apart, deconstructed to its constituent sounds, abstracted, and stripped of optimism. Only once does the chorus retain any vestige of its normal lyricism, but even that is fleeting—just an internally heard echo of the original external prayer (and an homage to the well-known canon on the same text). The piano part runs the gamut of emotions: at times manic, nervous, violent, ecstatic—often contrasting with the sustained nebulas of sound generated by the chorus, creating an illusion of serenity.