Lux Aeterna music by Morten Lauridsen, 1943–

The chorus and chamber orchestra version, composed for the Los Angeles Master Chorale, premiered on April 13, 1997. The chorus and organ version was first performed on April 26–27, 1997 by Choral Cross-Ties in Portland and by the Master Chorale at Loyola Marymount University. The work was commissioned by the Board of Governors of The Music Center, Inc., in honor of Shelton g. Stanfill. Translation by earthsongs.

Last performed by the Master Chorale on April 20, 2001, with Paul Salamunovich conducting.

From the composer

The work is in five movements played without pause. Its texts are drawn from sacred Latin sources, each containing references to Light. The piece opens and closes with the beginning and ending of the Requiem Mass, with the three central movements drawn, respectively, from the Te Deum (including a line from the Beatus Vir), O nata lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus.

The instrumental introduction to the Introitus softly recalls motivic fragments from two pieces especially close to my heart (my settings of Rilke’s Contre Qui, Rose and O Magnum Mysterium) which recur throughout the work in various forms. Several new themes in the Introitus are then introduced by the chorus, including an extended canon on et lux perpetua. In te, Domine, speravi contains, among other musical elements, the cantus firmus Herzliebster Jesu (from the Nuremberg Songbook, 1677) and a lengthy inverted canon on fiat misericordia. O nata lux and Veni, Sancte Spiritus are paired songs — the former the central a cappella motet, and the latter a spirited, jubilant canticle. A quiet setting of the Agnus Dei precedes the final Lux Aeterna, which reprises the opening section of the Introitus and concludes with a joyful Alleluia.