Lux Stellarum is a Requiem in six movements, lasting about 29 minutes. It is performed with typical excellence by Rupert Gough and The Choir of Royal Holloway. The organist Andrew Dewar has long been associated with this work, which was composed for him, Zach Ullery, and the choir of the American Cathedral, Paris. The producer Adaq Khan, eminent in his field, deserves a special mention too. 

Oliver Tarney has been building a distinguished career as a composer in the past ten years or so, and is also recognised for his firm commitment to music education. Lux Stellarum is a striking work which will repay the repeated hearings which a recording makes possible.

Fairly numerous Requiems have been composed in the last 150 years, including those of Fauré and Duruflé, which are of the ‘straightforward’ kind in which texts drawn only from the Requiem Mass are set. Increasingly composers have included other material, or have omitted some traditional texts.

The most striking of the ‘added-to’ kind is probably Britten’s War Requiem; other examples include works by John Rutter and Carl Jenkins. The settings by Fauré and Duruflé helped establish the practice of omitting the ’Dies irae’, which both limits duration and avoids the more terrifying passages from the traditional liturgy.

Olver Tarney is both a taker-away (of ‘Dies irae’ in particular) and a supplier of additional material. He has written as follows: 

Lux Stellarum (Light of the Stars) is a short requiem…[which] along with texts by Marjorie Pickthall and John Donne…interpolates a number of biblical passages about stars and the universe…The work is light and optimistic in character and centres on our part in the unfathomable wonder, vastness, and possibility of the cosmos, trusting that as God calls all the stars by their names, he calls us by ours to enter the gate of the heavens….

Each movement incorporates extra-liturgical material as well as liturgical text, except for No. 3 ‘Stars’, which is a setting of Marjorie Pickthall’s poem.¹ Plainsong melodies are used ‘throughout the piece from the Missa pro defunctis (the mass for the dead) and Conditor alme siderum (Creator of the stars of night)’. 

The work is pleasantly varied in terms of texture and sonority, ranging from the opening of the ‘Requiem aeternam’ in which we hear, a cappella, three solo voices ‘ppp almost imperceptibly’in imitation, to the endings of Sanctus (for choir and organ) and ‘In paradisum’ (organ solo). 

‘Requiem aeternam’ is mostly consoling and peaceful, as one would expect, but some rather more acerbic moments at about 1’40” underline the urgency of the appeal for rest (on the word ‘Domine’ – ‘Lord’). The quotation from Amos 5:8 begins with dance-like rhythms, presumably as part of the lightness and optimism to which Tarney refers in his programme note. Turning ‘darkness into morning’ neatly reintroduces the liturgical prayer for ‘perpetual light’. ‘Kyrie’ (movement 2) begins gently, with more impassioned cries for mercy at ‘Christe eleison’. A quotation from Liber Usualis calls on Jesus to ‘hear…thy servants when they call’.

‘Stars’ is entirely for unaccompanied voices, and is gentle throughout, many phrases beginning with consoling falling intervals. The poem stresses the peace of the stars, ‘all the lonelier [of which] look down upon the / fretful world [as] I / Look up to outer vastness unafraid…’.

‘Sanctus’ begins with an imposing threefold invocation, followed by a surprisingly sprightly treatment of ‘Dominus Deus Sabaoth’ (the majestic and powerful ‘Lord God of Hosts’). The movement culminates in an exultant ‘Hosanna’. ‘Agnus Dei’, like ‘Sanctus’ adds to the liturgical texts isolated verses from the Psalms about God’s creation of celestial bodies. It ends with moments of great delicacy and peace.

‘In paradisum’ begins with an a cappella setting of a highly appropriate quotation from John Donne: ‘Bring us, O Lord, at our last awakening’. The listing of texts in the CD booklet seems to be not entirely helpful after this. Unacknowledged are a quotation from ‘Creator of the stars’, and the repeated Amens. I wasn’t able to hear the latter part of the liturgical ‘In paradisum’ text from ‘Chorus angelorum’ through to ‘Aeternam habeas requiem’, despite this having been printed. The massive homophonic postlude for solo organ (2 minutes out of just over 6 for the whole track) is mostly triadic. It ends with a very long held chord, whose opening is coloured, in a surprising way, by the addition of dissonant material whose significance (it must have some) I was unable to identify by ear. Listeners may wonder how appropriate this ending is for a movement about entering into paradise, but perhaps the glory and the eternal nature of the heavenly state are suggested here.

¹ 1883–1922. Probably an unfamiliar name to most readers. The Wikipedia article provides a good introduction to Marjorie Pickthall.