24th Movement: Lux Aeterna
The twenty-fourth movement of the Requiem, Lux Aeterna, is accompanied by a video tour of Notre-Dame de Paris.
Lux Aeterna, like each of the composition's movements, was inspired by the beauty and grandeur of some of the world's great cathedrals and churches.
The Text Lux Aeterna (Eternal Light) This was traditionally sung as an antiphon in the Latin rite, or as a responsive verse during Communion.
Most composers have not included Lux Aeterna in their settings of the Requiem. Those who have usually place it in the penultimate position. This is where the Lux Aeterna is placed in Mozart’s Requiem. (But we can’t know if Mozart intended this, as Lux Aeterna is one of the movements for which the composer left no notes before his death in 1791. When Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed the Requiem a year later, he simply repeated Mozart’s first movement music to use as the setting for the Lux Aeterna.)
The Composition The Lux Aeterna, which concludes the Requiem Mass, is the most complex (and longest) of the work’s 26 parts (including the Introit and Postlude). It was written over three months with more than 30 revisions.
My wife and I shot the video accompanying the Lux Aeterna at Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris. The interior views were filmed during the Mass celebrating the annual Feast of Christ the King (full designation, “The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe”).
This section of the Requiem is scored for SATB Chorus, alto and boy soprano soloists; large string section (30 violins, 12 violas, 10 cellos, 9 double basses), brass (2 trumpets, 6 French horns, 2 trombones, 1 bass trombone), woodwinds (2 bassoons, contrabassoon, bass clarinet, English horn, piccolo); and timpani.
Latin Text and English Translation
Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine
cum sanctis tuis in aeternum: quia pius es.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine;
et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Cum sanctis tuis in aeternum:
quia pius es.
Et Lux aeterna luceat eis
Let everlasting light shine on them, O Lord
with Thy saints forever:for thou art merciful.
Eternal rest grant them, O Lord;
and let perpetual light
shine upon them
with Thy saints forever,
for Thou art merciful.
And let perpetual light shine upon them.
