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August Requiem is a tribute to a good friend.

Just two days before his 30th birthday, Loren Wright was killed in a freak accident on a high mountain road along Lake Tahoe, in northern California.

Loren had been a good friend and a true friend, even though we were not close friends. But good and true are the best kind of friends, regardless of their depth or longevity.

We met in a music ear training workshop. Although we were the same age, minus just a few months, he was working on his master's degree, and I was just beginning my music studies.

It was in 1970.

In college, I had been in the physical education department, played basketball, and did very little track. But since I was eleven, I had composed music—even though in a very elemental form, and even though our home was not known for its musical atmosphere. Most of my own life had been a bit of turmoil, and basketball had been my escape from life's challenges. Secretly, I also sought expression through music.

In 1969, due to graduate one year late, I flunked my final semester and, in the fall, determined it was a "now or never" scenario to finally study music formally. I had no idea what great depth there was in the world of "classical" music, and quickly immersed myself completely.

The problem was—as it has been throughout my life—I had no specific plan or goal. I simply wanted to learn as much as I could and compose music, whether there was promise for performance or not. In hindsight, I was in a similar cast as Vincent Van Gogh.

Although this work is comprised of nine sections (sections I, II, and III are grouped in part one), and each with its own personality, there are common threads throughout that weave the sections into a united fabric. Melodic themes, harmonic progressions, chordal sequences, and rhythmic patterns and iterations can be found throughout in sundry variations and alterations.

The work was completed on July 04, 1979, nearly three years after its inception. In essence, the work today is the same except for some modest modifications, primarily minor expansions of a few bars in a few places, some reinforcement of orchestration in a very few places, and a few little tweaks to harmonies and melodies. The expansions were to make the transitions and resolutions of some sections more complete, and the orchestration alterations simply were doublings in a few other places. The tweaks were very minor, but nonetheless effective.

The text I chose was similar to what many composers who set the Roman Catholic "funeral mass" to their own music had used in the concert hall setting since the 19th century, that of the Missa pro defunctis, "Mass for the Dead," the "requiem mass." Also known as "Mass of the dead" (Latin: Missa defunctorum).

As did my many predecessors, I selected excerpts of the "mass" that suited my needs. Some composers, notably Giuseppe Verdi, placed great emphasis on the "Sequence" portion with text about "the day of wrath"—the famous "Dies irae." In the Verdi, this section is almost the same length as all the other sections combined. The "hellfire and damnation" approach that he took might be considered by some to be contrary to the message of "peace" and "rest." Other composers, such as Fauré and Duruflé, eliminated the "Dies irae" entirely, and their entire works were quiet and comforting: almost to a fault, some might say. Some composers incorporated some text from the burial ceremony, and other parts not of the actual service within the church.

In my case, contrary to the above, and unlike typical requiem masses for the concert hall, August Requiem does not begin with quiet and comforting declarations or petitions of "peace" or of "rest" but with a fierceness and an anger. The death of my friend, and my lack of comprehension of that death, spawned a demonstrative statement of anger and questioning.

As the work progresses through its sections, the temperament of the work gradually transforms into one of understanding and, ultimately, acceptance.

APPROXIMATE TIME: c. 48'25"
:-)
Vanessa McClintock
November  2023