In Paradisum

In Paradisum sets a prayer from the Roman Catholic Burial Service which has often been used as a movement in settings of the Requiem Mass. The opening ‘Requiem’ section emerges calmly from silence and builds in texture until the entry of the sopranos, who sing the first verse as a tender and reflective song in two parts accompanied by the remaining choir. The second half of the work is scored for full choir and is joyous and majestic. Mirroring the opening, the final phrase of “Love is strong as death” slowly diminishes away to nothing.

I wrote this piece as a stand-alone anthem back in early 1990, during the Christmas break of my second year of undergraduate studies in engineering at Durham University. For some reason, which now escapes me, I believed that it would not be a popular or easy piece to perform, so I put it away “in a drawer” and didn’t think about it for many years.

In 2009 some friends of mine very kindly put on a concert of my music in celebration of my 40th birthday. I was asked by one of the two conductors if I had any unperformed scores that I would like to hear and in response I dug up a copy of the In paradisum setting. The concert was well received and the piece was performed several further times over the following years. A recording of the premiere performance of In paradisum was played as the closing music for my mother’s funeral in 2012 and the piece was published by Boosey & Hawkes in 2015.