Chords for Howard Goodall : Eternal Light - A Requiem

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This is quite an unusual project in many [Abm] ways because of all the different collaborations.
We've got [A] EMI Classics and the [E] Record, and we've got the Rombet Dance Company and the dance version of the piece which tours,
and London Musici, who are the [Dbm] orchestra who will play for that and are playing on the CD,
and the Choir of Christchurch Cathedral Oxford, who are singing on the CD and singing a part of the tour when it goes on tour with the dance version.
So it is really a coming together of lots of very interesting different groups. _
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[Bb] _ [Fm] The thing is that I've always been tickled by the idea of [G] writing a Requiem,
but I didn't want to write a straightforward old-fashioned Requiem following the old pattern [Ab] of the old Requiems.
And what was really exciting about this was it was [D] born out of wanting [Eb] to write a concert [B] work,
but also having this [F] opportunity to write a dance version of the same piece [G] at the same time.
_ [E] So it's grown up as both a choral orchestral work that could be performed in a concert hall or on a CD or in a church,
and also this dance version that will be danced [Gbm] and performed live.
Now, [E] it is a choral work with soloists and an orchestra, [Dbm] and it is a Requiem,
but in fact it's [Gbm] a mixture of sacred and [B] secular texts,
[E] and it is, I suppose, a mixed sacred-secular approach to the subject of a [Gm] Requiem.
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[D] _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ Well, we tour with an orchestra, London Musici, and this piece [Gb] is to celebrate _ 20 years of their existence. _
_ And they asked me if I'd like to do it, and it seemed kind of a fitting thing to celebrate 20 years of our orchestra, London Musici,
and for my second piece for the company.
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_ _ _ _ [B] _ One of the _ famous [E] movements of any Requiem is the D-A-Z-A, which in the past, famously so in Verdi's case,
is kind of about hell and brimstone, you know, that day of judgment when hell is going to be unleashed.
And often the music is very painful and loud and bitter and angry. _
_ So I chose a poem by John McRae, who was a Canadian who fought in the First World War,
in fact he died the week after _ Armistice Day, I think. _
_ He wrote a poem called In Flanders Fields about being on the Western Front in the First World War,
and it seemed to me that the hell of warfare was probably our modern equivalent of D-A-Z-A.
So I combined his poem with the D-A-Z-A text.
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_ In Flanders fields the poppies blow between the crosses, row on row, mark our place.
And in the sky the larks, still bravely singing, fly scattered.
In _ Flanders _ fields the _ [Dm] poppies blow _ _ between _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ the crosses, row _ on row. _
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I listened to _ some of the music, [G]
and there are two fast sections, both of which do you film little bits of,
and I really wanted those put into the piece, because otherwise, with the kind of music it is,
[Gm] and the sort of singing it is, it has this amazing, _ pleasing rise and fall, _ _
_ and choreographically, to make that interesting, I needed to find a way of kind of cutting into it. _
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I think it's true to [G] say as a composer you shouldn't be too surprised by what [D] you hear
when the piece is performed or recorded, [B] because you should really have known what it was going to sound like.
But one of the [D] things that happens is, especially when you put live singers into a piece,
_ _ their personality comes into the delivery.
_ _ [F] It's beautiful, it's one of the most beautiful pieces of music, it's absolutely fantastically written for [A] voice,
so it's really, really lyrical phrases, and it's been a real joy.
_ _ The phrases for Soprano are fantastic, they're really long, floaty phrases which are right up my street,
so it's been [C] a real pleasure, and it's a great atmosphere, everyone here is really [Ab] enjoying it. _ _ _ _ _ _
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