reviewvancouver: Mozart and Lauridsen

Morten Lauridsen's Eternal Light was precisely the kind of music one should listen to on Good Friday. VCC's orchestra and choir delivered this contemporary composer's 40-minute piece with quiet serenity the way it was intended by this 70-year old professor of of composition at the University of Southern Califonia Thornton School of Music where he has been teaching for the past 40 years.

VCC's traditional Good Friday concert started off with Mozart's venerable masterpiece Requiem sung sublimely by the Pacific Singers and featured vocalists Shannon Mercer (soprano), Anita Krause (alto), Carman J. Price (tenor), and Wim Vermeulen ( bass). But the experience of listening to Lauridsen's modern classic Lux Aeterna in the second half inspired me to meditate as one should on this holy day.

Following the structure of a High Mass, both Mozart in the first part of the programme and Lauridsen start off with the Introitus where Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis is again repeated in the end. In Mozart's case, Communio which was comleted by his student Franz Xaver Sussmayer because Mozart had died without completing this composition. In Lauridsen's case, his closing movement combines the Agnus Dei and the Lux Aeterna.

On my way out, I heard audience members praising the show with expressions like "Wonderful!" and "Just right for Good Friday."

This was indeed an evening inspired by this concert for prayer and meditation.