Invitation to a Requiem
By Ralph Karow
In last month’s article I started talking about prearranging a funeral service for my mother before all of her assets go to medical care. It’s a thought that didn’t occur to me when my father had a stroke and we had to attend to his assets. It’s comfortable for me to think of all the practical and logistical reasons for why that didn’t happen, but very uncomfortable for me to allow the possibility that I wasn’t yet ready to put together a funeral, vocationally speaking. Five years ago, a service for either of them would have been one of those “celebrations of life” in a catering hall, not a religious service in a church.
But five years ago I did have a dream that my mother had passed away and I had given $3,000 to a group of nuns to hold a memorial service in the basement of my parish in Manhattan. It wasn’t the modern basement, but a stone basement with burial niches in the walls and long coarse wooden tables with benches rather than chairs—a scene that brought to mind the catacombs of the early church. The dream means nothing unless I allow the possibility that it was a bit of kairos time being exposed for future reference.
In 2017, $3,000 was about all I had to my name, which symbolically means to give everything I have. I don’t even have that any more, but what I do have is a setting of the complete Latin Requiem Mass which I completed in 2013 and has never been performed. I had all but forgotten about both the Requiem and this dream until I started think about a funeral service for my parents and the parable of the wedding feast started pressing itself on my mind. On the surface, using my own setting of the Requiem as a focus of the funeral service could easily be viewed as self-promotion or self-indulgence. I might try convincing people that my parents felt so strongly about my compositional abilities that they would have wanted their son’s music at their funeral, but I’m not sure I believe that myself.
What I do believe, however, is that my requiem fits the overall scenario of the dream, the parable, and my own evolving sense of vocation. To start, I feel I’m being called to work with music as a composer/theorist and theologian in an evangelical rather than liturgical sense. The kairos time of the dream indicated the “early church” in the basement of the “modern church”; the foundation of God’s Church covered by the edifice man has created. With that in mind we have to contrast the states of both music and evangelization between our time and Roman times. There was no formalized system of music back then. It would have been simple, single-lined melodies with a rhythm that flowed from the words being intoned.
Nowadays we hear music in a major/minor harmonic context, with the words fitted to a melody in a static meter. It’s not a subtle difference or two sides of the same coin. In the first instance, the words are predominant. The music has no form or structure in the absence of the word: In the beginning was the Word, and all else was a formless void. What’s more, there were no scales of eight notes fitting within an octave or such a thing as a harmonic context. They dealt with smaller four-note units called tetrachords. In theory there were 12 notes. In practice, fewer were used, and that according to how the tetrachords were derived and arranged. Nobody knows exactly how all that worked, except to say that music at that time did not fall within the modern 12-note system. It did not have the same forms or use the same structure or have the same number of elements. The interesting thing is that both the Eastern and Western churches maintain that their systems of chant are separate from the Western 12-note system that came into its own around the time of the Reformation. According to music theorists, Eastern chant encompasses 10 notes and Western only 8.
Let’s put that on hold for a moment and take a look at evangelization. Back in the first few centuries, the vast majority of the world was ignorant of the Word. Evangelists had to go out and introduce it to people. Those sufficiently affected by the Word would then come to an underground Church as catechumens to have the Word become an integral part of their everyday existence. The Church was the people who gathered together in communities to celebrate the Eucharist and become the living Word as they ate its flesh. The buildings, organization, and doctrine came later. Those evangelists went out in search of sheep, in general, to form the first flocks. They weren’t trying to get these sheep’s attention from inside the church and entice them into a well-defined fold.
Nowadays, we take for granted that there is a well-defined Church edifice that people need to come to, just as we take for granted that there is a well-defined system of music that people need to listen to. And we are so accustomed to them being there—just as they are—that they have blended into the background so thoroughly that they have become nearly imperceptible, unintelligible, and inessential to too large a number of people. Among that large number are the very people at the head of the guest list for the funeral service I need to plan for my parents. The temptation before me is to plan something that would appeal to the guest list ... which would put me in a catering hall with polkas and waltzes playing in the background. They would all be happier and think well of me, but what of my parents, and what of my faith and my vocation? Where in all of the hubbub are they being prayed for, and how do I answer to God for burying the talents he gave me in the sand?
There’s no question in my mind that this setting of the Requiem was a gift. In late November of 2009, I woke up with a four-part Kyrie sounding so clearly in my head that I was able to notate it completely before even getting my morning tea. This came just a few days after a very powerful and unusual dream involving a woman with wings at the apex of an egg-shaped dome, apocalyptic images from Revelation 12, and the third vision of Hildegard von Bingen. I couldn’t shake the dream, and in June of 2010 I went to Mepkin Abbey for a period of discernment to try to figure out what it meant. Having known me and my view of setting sacred texts as a form of lectio divina since 2004, the Abbot insisted I use their music room to compose as part of my discernment process. I was so unprepared to write anything that I did not even have manuscript paper. The Kyrie was so deeply planted in my mind, though, that I decided to use it as the basis for a Mass setting, and the character of it seemed to call for the Requiem. I only intended to set the Introit as an exercise while at the Abbey, but the Requiem kept nagging me, and eventually I finished it in 2013.
Now here’s the interesting part. The setting is not chant by any stretch of the imagination, nor was it based on any melodies or nuances of chant. It was, however, written with two guiding principles. The first was that the melodic lines for each of the four parts would adhere strictly to the text in mostly stepwise motion and without any (or minimal) embellishments. This is in keeping with a basic characteristic of all chant. The second principle was that I conscientiously omitted two intervals from the 12 Western notes: the tritone and the major 7th. That was in keeping with two “recommendations” from Rome concerning polyphonic music. That effectively left me with the 10-note span of Eastern chant, but more importantly kept me from falling into either of the major or minor tonalities that our ears are so accustomed to, or write in the highly chromatic style I was used to. These rules that I imposed on myself lend the setting a unique character, and since it drew all its form, melodic contour, rhythm, and harmonic shadings from deep meditations on the text, it’s impossible for me not to recognize the entire act of composition as intense prayer.
As I hinted at in last month’s article, although our petitions occur in kronos time, their influence and effect is on kairos time. What I prayed 10 years ago for others will be as valid and effective when done again for my parents at their service. Actually, I can effect that prayer for anyone at any time when reading the score in remembrance for them. But that’s me praying alone, while the performance of the musical setting invites others to pray along with me, whether I’m there or not. If the semantics of prayer is focused by the text, then the intent and emotional commitment are heightened by the score. Any score, of any style of music, does this by invoking an aura and attitude of reverence and prayer, which effectively drapes an aural garment over them. Using my setting of the Requiem Mass is extending to others the aura and attitude of prayer I cached in kairos time. It would no longer be a talent buried in the sand, but the liquidation of an investment. And the dividends returned with the talent are the prayers others contribute by reflecting on the text and drawing on their own memories while wearing the aural garment.
That explains the wedding garment, but why the strangers, why the lavish feast, and what does this have to do with vocation? Quite frankly, this piece will require a minimum 24-voice professional choir to pull it off. While the Lady Chapel at St Ignatius would suffice for a more modest piece requiring only four voices, my setting will need the large church just to hold the choir, not to mention the ambience of the space. Mine is a small family that will not take up more than two or three pews—even if everyone came—and this in a church that seats more than 1,000 people. To leave that many seats empty would be an incredible waste and embarrassment and truly be self-indulgent. A closer look at the situation, however, reveals to me an opportunity for evangelization as in Roman times, with a modern twist.
As I said above, it’s not that people have never heard the Word and don’t regularly hear a large variety of music almost continuously. The challenge is that the Word and music have become so commonplace and so misused and misrepresented that they have lost their luster and are becoming buried under sociological and cultural sediment. Christianity does not need to reinvent itself or adapt to the times or try to turn the clock back. What it does need to do is unearth its buried treasures, gain a better understanding of them, and showcase them in all their grandeur and glory. I can’t speak to the treasures of the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or Holy Scripture, but I can speak about the roots of chant and compose a new music stemming from those foundations.
I’ve already said enough about music theory for the purpose of this article. I’ve also already composed a substantial piece drawing only on the fundamental principles from which early Christian (pre Eastern and Western) chant grew. The music will speak for itself when it gets heard. Hiring a choir to learn and perform it guarantees that they will at least have an experience by which the Spirit may work its wonders. How many others will come to hear and experience it depends on how successfully I can draw strangers to come to a church building to give it their attention. The most likely to attend are a small and specialized demographic of musicians, academics, and scholars who could be reached by
further articles in a variety of publications. I have a feeling, though, that word of mouth is going to be far more effective. Not me talking to others, but if the people taking part in the rehearsals find the music to be something they think their friends would be interested to hear ... who knows?
The whole thing is both outlandish and entirely within the realm of possibility. It should be pretty clear that I intend to pursue this regardless of whether or not my mother, or co-POA or the estate is willing to bear all or part of the expense. Perhaps I’ll inherit something, in which case I could fund it myself, or maybe I’ll have to raise the money, but it’s become too clear to me that if I don’t pursue this wholeheartedly, then all my talk of vocation and living a contemplative life and following God’s call is a sham. My purpose in writing all this and sharing the experience, however, lies much closer to home than evangelization and philosophies of time and prayer. These are points I’ve only come to after decades of paying attention to a conglomeration of seemingly random thoughts, words of scriptures grabbing my attention, coincidence, dreams, and intuitions. And not only paying attention to them on my own, but in reflection and prayer that I’ve shared with others at monasteries and my home parish. Very subtle at first; becoming more pronounced over time. Moreover, I’ve had to learn not to cling to any one aspect at the expense of another. I’m still learning and still finding things I’ve overlooked, was too dismissive of, forgotten about, and completely misunderstood.
The most important thing I can say in this article, though, is that my experiences, my pursuits, and my journey are no more unique or special than anyone else’s. Granted that not everyone has set a Requiem Mass or feels compelled to employ it as a forum to gather together 1,000 people in prayer; but that’s all I’m capable of doing. I can’t conduct it, sing it, preside over the Mass, or even comfort the bereaved. I’m good with cloistered, solitary work, not at interacting with people. Fortunately, others are, and while my kronos time was logged years ago in composition and is being logged now in preparation, all of that is only setting up for others to exercise their own unique gifts and callings. God knew each of us since before we were born, knit us together in our mother’s womb, showered us with gifts and graces, and calls each of us by name to the fullness of what we can be. Every person involved in the future kronos event, including those who won’t be involved but are only reading this article now, will touch on the only truly significant and meaningful kairos reality that God put in place for them since before time began. The special thing God has done for me is make it so obvious, grandiose, and completely off the wall that I can’t help but notice what God has prepared for me and is asking me to engage in.
The question I will leave you with is this: When you look back on your own lives and reflect on your own situations, circumstances, gifts, and inner longings—both realized and unrealized—will you find a commonality running throughout? Can you see a path you’ve been invited to travel? Is it any clearer, or is there a deeper meaning when filtered through the parables and other scripture? I can’t answer any of that, nor is it any of my business. I’m just relaying what I’ve been finding in my own life and offer it as something others might ponder for themselves. Next month, I’d like to conclude this topic with a focus on the people who’ll be knitting together the wedding garments for the feast: the choir. Some months ago, I heard Brother Christopher use the phrase “the choir is the icon of community.” I thought it was profoundly beautiful at the time and think it will be interesting to explore in this context. We’ll see!
In last month’s article I started talking about prearranging a funeral service for my mother before all of her assets go to medical care. It’s a thought that didn’t occur to me when my father had a stroke and we had to attend to his assets. It’s comfortable for me to think of all the practical and logistical reasons for why that didn’t happen, but very uncomfortable for me to allow the possibility that I wasn’t yet ready to put together a funeral, vocationally speaking. Five years ago, a service for either of them would have been one of those “celebrations of life” in a catering hall, not a religious service in a church.
But five years ago I did have a dream that my mother had passed away and I had given $3,000 to a group of nuns to hold a memorial service in the basement of my parish in Manhattan. It wasn’t the modern basement, but a stone basement with burial niches in the walls and long coarse wooden tables with benches rather than chairs—a scene that brought to mind the catacombs of the early church. The dream means nothing unless I allow the possibility that it was a bit of kairos time being exposed for future reference.
In 2017, $3,000 was about all I had to my name, which symbolically means to give everything I have. I don’t even have that any more, but what I do have is a setting of the complete Latin Requiem Mass which I completed in 2013 and has never been performed. I had all but forgotten about both the Requiem and this dream until I started think about a funeral service for my parents and the parable of the wedding feast started pressing itself on my mind. On the surface, using my own setting of the Requiem as a focus of the funeral service could easily be viewed as self-promotion or self-indulgence. I might try convincing people that my parents felt so strongly about my compositional abilities that they would have wanted their son’s music at their funeral, but I’m not sure I believe that myself.
What I do believe, however, is that my requiem fits the overall scenario of the dream, the parable, and my own evolving sense of vocation. To start, I feel I’m being called to work with music as a composer/theorist and theologian in an evangelical rather than liturgical sense. The kairos time of the dream indicated the “early church” in the basement of the “modern church”; the foundation of God’s Church covered by the edifice man has created. With that in mind we have to contrast the states of both music and evangelization between our time and Roman times. There was no formalized system of music back then. It would have been simple, single-lined melodies with a rhythm that flowed from the words being intoned.
Nowadays we hear music in a major/minor harmonic context, with the words fitted to a melody in a static meter. It’s not a subtle difference or two sides of the same coin. In the first instance, the words are predominant. The music has no form or structure in the absence of the word: In the beginning was the Word, and all else was a formless void. What’s more, there were no scales of eight notes fitting within an octave or such a thing as a harmonic context. They dealt with smaller four-note units called tetrachords. In theory there were 12 notes. In practice, fewer were used, and that according to how the tetrachords were derived and arranged. Nobody knows exactly how all that worked, except to say that music at that time did not fall within the modern 12-note system. It did not have the same forms or use the same structure or have the same number of elements. The interesting thing is that both the Eastern and Western churches maintain that their systems of chant are separate from the Western 12-note system that came into its own around the time of the Reformation. According to music theorists, Eastern chant encompasses 10 notes and Western only 8.
Let’s put that on hold for a moment and take a look at evangelization. Back in the first few centuries, the vast majority of the world was ignorant of the Word. Evangelists had to go out and introduce it to people. Those sufficiently affected by the Word would then come to an underground Church as catechumens to have the Word become an integral part of their everyday existence. The Church was the people who gathered together in communities to celebrate the Eucharist and become the living Word as they ate its flesh. The buildings, organization, and doctrine came later. Those evangelists went out in search of sheep, in general, to form the first flocks. They weren’t trying to get these sheep’s attention from inside the church and entice them into a well-defined fold.
Nowadays, we take for granted that there is a well-defined Church edifice that people need to come to, just as we take for granted that there is a well-defined system of music that people need to listen to. And we are so accustomed to them being there—just as they are—that they have blended into the background so thoroughly that they have become nearly imperceptible, unintelligible, and inessential to too large a number of people. Among that large number are the very people at the head of the guest list for the funeral service I need to plan for my parents. The temptation before me is to plan something that would appeal to the guest list ... which would put me in a catering hall with polkas and waltzes playing in the background. They would all be happier and think well of me, but what of my parents, and what of my faith and my vocation? Where in all of the hubbub are they being prayed for, and how do I answer to God for burying the talents he gave me in the sand?
There’s no question in my mind that this setting of the Requiem was a gift. In late November of 2009, I woke up with a four-part Kyrie sounding so clearly in my head that I was able to notate it completely before even getting my morning tea. This came just a few days after a very powerful and unusual dream involving a woman with wings at the apex of an egg-shaped dome, apocalyptic images from Revelation 12, and the third vision of Hildegard von Bingen. I couldn’t shake the dream, and in June of 2010 I went to Mepkin Abbey for a period of discernment to try to figure out what it meant. Having known me and my view of setting sacred texts as a form of lectio divina since 2004, the Abbot insisted I use their music room to compose as part of my discernment process. I was so unprepared to write anything that I did not even have manuscript paper. The Kyrie was so deeply planted in my mind, though, that I decided to use it as the basis for a Mass setting, and the character of it seemed to call for the Requiem. I only intended to set the Introit as an exercise while at the Abbey, but the Requiem kept nagging me, and eventually I finished it in 2013.
Now here’s the interesting part. The setting is not chant by any stretch of the imagination, nor was it based on any melodies or nuances of chant. It was, however, written with two guiding principles. The first was that the melodic lines for each of the four parts would adhere strictly to the text in mostly stepwise motion and without any (or minimal) embellishments. This is in keeping with a basic characteristic of all chant. The second principle was that I conscientiously omitted two intervals from the 12 Western notes: the tritone and the major 7th. That was in keeping with two “recommendations” from Rome concerning polyphonic music. That effectively left me with the 10-note span of Eastern chant, but more importantly kept me from falling into either of the major or minor tonalities that our ears are so accustomed to, or write in the highly chromatic style I was used to. These rules that I imposed on myself lend the setting a unique character, and since it drew all its form, melodic contour, rhythm, and harmonic shadings from deep meditations on the text, it’s impossible for me not to recognize the entire act of composition as intense prayer.
As I hinted at in last month’s article, although our petitions occur in kronos time, their influence and effect is on kairos time. What I prayed 10 years ago for others will be as valid and effective when done again for my parents at their service. Actually, I can effect that prayer for anyone at any time when reading the score in remembrance for them. But that’s me praying alone, while the performance of the musical setting invites others to pray along with me, whether I’m there or not. If the semantics of prayer is focused by the text, then the intent and emotional commitment are heightened by the score. Any score, of any style of music, does this by invoking an aura and attitude of reverence and prayer, which effectively drapes an aural garment over them. Using my setting of the Requiem Mass is extending to others the aura and attitude of prayer I cached in kairos time. It would no longer be a talent buried in the sand, but the liquidation of an investment. And the dividends returned with the talent are the prayers others contribute by reflecting on the text and drawing on their own memories while wearing the aural garment.
That explains the wedding garment, but why the strangers, why the lavish feast, and what does this have to do with vocation? Quite frankly, this piece will require a minimum 24-voice professional choir to pull it off. While the Lady Chapel at St Ignatius would suffice for a more modest piece requiring only four voices, my setting will need the large church just to hold the choir, not to mention the ambience of the space. Mine is a small family that will not take up more than two or three pews—even if everyone came—and this in a church that seats more than 1,000 people. To leave that many seats empty would be an incredible waste and embarrassment and truly be self-indulgent. A closer look at the situation, however, reveals to me an opportunity for evangelization as in Roman times, with a modern twist.
As I said above, it’s not that people have never heard the Word and don’t regularly hear a large variety of music almost continuously. The challenge is that the Word and music have become so commonplace and so misused and misrepresented that they have lost their luster and are becoming buried under sociological and cultural sediment. Christianity does not need to reinvent itself or adapt to the times or try to turn the clock back. What it does need to do is unearth its buried treasures, gain a better understanding of them, and showcase them in all their grandeur and glory. I can’t speak to the treasures of the virtues, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or Holy Scripture, but I can speak about the roots of chant and compose a new music stemming from those foundations.
I’ve already said enough about music theory for the purpose of this article. I’ve also already composed a substantial piece drawing only on the fundamental principles from which early Christian (pre Eastern and Western) chant grew. The music will speak for itself when it gets heard. Hiring a choir to learn and perform it guarantees that they will at least have an experience by which the Spirit may work its wonders. How many others will come to hear and experience it depends on how successfully I can draw strangers to come to a church building to give it their attention. The most likely to attend are a small and specialized demographic of musicians, academics, and scholars who could be reached by
further articles in a variety of publications. I have a feeling, though, that word of mouth is going to be far more effective. Not me talking to others, but if the people taking part in the rehearsals find the music to be something they think their friends would be interested to hear ... who knows?
The whole thing is both outlandish and entirely within the realm of possibility. It should be pretty clear that I intend to pursue this regardless of whether or not my mother, or co-POA or the estate is willing to bear all or part of the expense. Perhaps I’ll inherit something, in which case I could fund it myself, or maybe I’ll have to raise the money, but it’s become too clear to me that if I don’t pursue this wholeheartedly, then all my talk of vocation and living a contemplative life and following God’s call is a sham. My purpose in writing all this and sharing the experience, however, lies much closer to home than evangelization and philosophies of time and prayer. These are points I’ve only come to after decades of paying attention to a conglomeration of seemingly random thoughts, words of scriptures grabbing my attention, coincidence, dreams, and intuitions. And not only paying attention to them on my own, but in reflection and prayer that I’ve shared with others at monasteries and my home parish. Very subtle at first; becoming more pronounced over time. Moreover, I’ve had to learn not to cling to any one aspect at the expense of another. I’m still learning and still finding things I’ve overlooked, was too dismissive of, forgotten about, and completely misunderstood.
The most important thing I can say in this article, though, is that my experiences, my pursuits, and my journey are no more unique or special than anyone else’s. Granted that not everyone has set a Requiem Mass or feels compelled to employ it as a forum to gather together 1,000 people in prayer; but that’s all I’m capable of doing. I can’t conduct it, sing it, preside over the Mass, or even comfort the bereaved. I’m good with cloistered, solitary work, not at interacting with people. Fortunately, others are, and while my kronos time was logged years ago in composition and is being logged now in preparation, all of that is only setting up for others to exercise their own unique gifts and callings. God knew each of us since before we were born, knit us together in our mother’s womb, showered us with gifts and graces, and calls each of us by name to the fullness of what we can be. Every person involved in the future kronos event, including those who won’t be involved but are only reading this article now, will touch on the only truly significant and meaningful kairos reality that God put in place for them since before time began. The special thing God has done for me is make it so obvious, grandiose, and completely off the wall that I can’t help but notice what God has prepared for me and is asking me to engage in.
The question I will leave you with is this: When you look back on your own lives and reflect on your own situations, circumstances, gifts, and inner longings—both realized and unrealized—will you find a commonality running throughout? Can you see a path you’ve been invited to travel? Is it any clearer, or is there a deeper meaning when filtered through the parables and other scripture? I can’t answer any of that, nor is it any of my business. I’m just relaying what I’ve been finding in my own life and offer it as something others might ponder for themselves. Next month, I’d like to conclude this topic with a focus on the people who’ll be knitting together the wedding garments for the feast: the choir. Some months ago, I heard Brother Christopher use the phrase “the choir is the icon of community.” I thought it was profoundly beautiful at the time and think it will be interesting to explore in this context. We’ll see!
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