Singing a Requiem Mass is not on my 60 By Sixty list.  Maybe it should have been.  As a church musician, I have sung many Requiems in my forty years as a chorister so this is not about singing “a” Requiem.  It’s about singing a Requiem today, November 2, 2021.  Tonight was the first time that our full church choir has sung together since March of 2020.  For choristers who, under normal circumstances, would make music as an ensemble multiple times each week, eighteen months without doing so has created a great void.  A death of sorts.

Today is All Souls Day, the day set aside each year to remember all those who have died.  Our choir, accompanied by instrumentalists from the Dallas Opera Orchestra, offered the Gabriel Faure Requiem to the community tonight to celebrate All Souls Day.  As the strings bowed their first notes and the choir sang, “Requiem aeternam Dona eis Domine, et lux perpetual luceat eis” (Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them.), it hit me that not only were we singing in remembrance of all of the lives lost, but we were also singing in remembrance of all the life lost. 

In the big scheme of things, pandemic life has not been bad for me or my family.  Thankfully none of us has gotten sick, but that has come at a cost.  We have not “done life” the same way over the past year and a half as we did pre-COVID.  Skipping traditional family gatherings such as birthdays and holidays constitutes a loss of “life.”  Not singing on Sunday mornings even though everyone knew it was absolutely the right thing to do constitutes a loss of life.  We all have a right to mourn both the loss of lives and the loss of life.  I don’t think I realized that until tonight.

The good thing about singing, or listening to, a Requiem is that even though there may be a sense of sadness at the beginning, by the time you get to the end, hope and peace and made their way into your heart.

Though I didn’t know it, I needed this experience tonight, to sing a lot and to grieve a little.  Honoring those twinges of sadness caused by what I have missed opened the way to finding comfort and peace going forward.

We did have a full ensemble tonight making glorious music together, but things still aren’t totally back to normal.  We all wore masks while singing and playing.  Who knew that black masks would become a part of concert black dress?!  Surprisingly, singing with a mask is not terrible.  If I could just keep my glasses from fogging up, it would actually be tolerable.  And then I am reminded that fogged up glasses is a small price to pay for the opportunity to make beautiful music!

If you are interested in the tonight’s Requiem Mass, here is the link.  It is sung in the context of the Episcopal liturgy so if you only want to hear the music, you’ll have to do some fast forwarding.  I do encourage you to listen to the sermon.  It is a powerful message!