Dona Nobis Pacem

(2001-2002)
For SATB Choir & Strings

(or SATB Choir and String Quintet)

Duration: ca. 7 minutes

First performance:
This piece has not yet been performed.

Program Notes

Dona Nobis Pacem was written in response to "an invitation to all composers to create music on peace texts" from the Carlton Savage Endowment for International Relations and Peace for their "Waging Peace Through Singing" Campaign. "The purpose of the program is to encourage the creation and dissemination of an international repertoire of choral music on peace-related texts."

Although I had received a post card announcing this call for scores in August of 2001, I did not begin composing the work until November later that year. During that time, I periodically searched for texts which I thought I might use. Then in the middle of my search came the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Since that time, I, like so many other Americans, have had such a different perspective of the world we live in and am just more aware of all the unrest there is on this planet. Suddenly, the composing of this piece became more relevant than I had expected it would be. By the end of my search for texts, it seemed that they all had a particular agenda and I did not want this piece to be about any one issue, September 11 included. In the end, I chose to use the minimalist but classic "Dona Nobis Pacem" (Give Us Peace).

The work is rather simple. The main melodic line generates much of the musical gestures in the piece. The two most recognizable melodies in the whole work are in actuality, the same line, one being the retrograde of the other, with slight note duration modifications. Other lines are derived from the harmonization of the melodies. The piece also explores the use of mensural relationships between melodic fragments as well as a process I call macro-melodic interpolation (the stretching of a melody over time as a structural foundation and inserting freely composed material in between).

In some ways, typical choral voice leading is employed, but many "rules" are broken as well. In some cases voices do cross, and there are some unusual chordal resolutions. Due to the paucity of the text, I wanted to have instrumental parts to keep the piece interesting. However, I also intended the work to be somewhat flexible in its performing forces. I love the combination of voices and strings and Dona Nobis Pacem was written to be performed by either a chamber choir and string section or a smaller chamber choir and string quintet. There is only two part divisi in the upper voices at the end of the piece and there is no divisi in the strings.

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