Requiem for a Nation

When Richard Danielpour composed An American Requiem in September 2000, he had no idea it would be presented to a nation experiencing a battlefront on its own soil. Yet a year later he was on the phone to his New York publishers, discussing the details of the recording's inscription, when his editor stopped to witness the jet hurtle into the second World Trade Center tower. In that tragic moment, Danielpour revised his inscription to read, "To all the victims of war."

Danielpour is a prolific and vibrant composer whose sweeping and reflective style has given a distinct voice to contemporary American classical music. His motivation in writing An American Requiem grew out of a desire to understand his nation's warring past. As a child of the '60s and early '70s, war was very much part of his life, but the "experiences and their implications were taken in from a distance," he writes in the CD's liner notes. Too young to fight but old enough to understand the calls of the anti-war movement, he grew up believing that the United States picked its battles because of "economic and political agendas" and had little concern for the men and women enlisted to fight these wars.

In 1998, Danielpour began to interview veterans of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam in preparation for this composition. Drawn into their experiences, he discovered that soldiers were not conflicted about the duty to serve and sacrifice. They were willing to fight and to die, if necessary, for the protection of others—those left behind or those fighting at their sides. Despite the rhetoric of politicians designed to persuade (or manipulate) public support, these fighting men and women embraced a notion of personal sacrifice that had little to do with the economic and political agendas of their nation's leaders. Danielpour's work conveys this integrity of spirit so evident in the first victims of war—its soldiers.

Ultimately, this work is about human suffering—of the soldier, the parent, the brother or sister, the comrade. The vehicle by which Danielpour chose to convey his message was the requiem, a Mass for the dead. Generally set with Latin texts, Danielpour layered this centuries-old choral setting with distinctly American voices—Emerson, Whitman, modern poets Michael Harper, Hilda Doolittle, and a nameless writer of spirituals. Through the orchestra, chorus, and three solo voices—mezzo soprano, tenor, and baritone—An American Requiem tells the tales of a people, sacrificed and sacrificing for their nation.

At some moments, the intensity of the work shocks the listener. The lyrics "Dies irae, dies illa" ("Day of wrath and doom impending") drive its audience to feel the magnitude of chaos and horror on the battlefield. The din gives way to the tenor who cries the words of Whitman: "I see a sad procession, and I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles; all the channels of the city streets they're flooding as with voices and with tears."

The wailing of the mezzo comes to us as a mother—one left behind to grieve. With Emerson's words, she laments: "Was there no star that could be sent, no watcher in the firmament/ Could stoop to heal that only child/...And keep the blossom of the earth?/...The eager fate which carried thee took the largest part of me."

Danielpour demands much from his chorus in this piece, asking them to convey a range of passions associated with human suffering. They sing of the profundity of affliction and of the complexity of God's ultimate grace, and they offer wild and glorious hosannas in such a way that testifies to the hope offered by God's infinite love.

But in the end, it is death we are expecting—the inevitable and undeniable result of warfare. It is the mezzo who prepares us with the text of Michael Harper: "Can't you see what love and heartache's done to me. I'm not the same as I used to be, this is my last affair." And finally, the baritone takes us home through the sentiments of the nameless spiritual writer who knows something of the rest that follows suffering in life and in death: "I know moonlight and I know starlight; I lay this body down. I walk in the graveyard; I walk through the graveyard to lay this body down."

Though suffering is its theme, the essential message of An American Requiem is peace: "Requiem aeternam" ("eternal rest give unto them") and "Kyrie eleison" ("Lord have mercy upon us"). The chorus sings to comfort the grieving. Wrapped in a lushness of sound and thought, Danielpour offers us a bit of rest and helps us discover the peace of requiem.