Agnus Dei | Ian Evans Guthrie | MusicSpoke

Ian Evans

Guthrie

Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei (2024) for SSAATTBB and piano

Duration: ca. 4’30”

Ian Evans Guthrie

Program notes

A couple years ago, I created my own setting of the In Paradisum, partly in response to deaths in the families of some of my students. It was also my first attempt to write in an imitative counterpoint style, while still retaining some of the modern harmonies that I like to use in my solo songs and instrumental works.

This Agnus Dei comes from a similar situation: The KC Chiefs Shooting in 2024. Unlike my previous choral pieces, it is not a cappella, but neither is the piano merely an accompaniment. Instead, the piano serves as a percussive instrument of sorts, marking the various shots at mathematically demarcated points (which, at the time of writing, were one dead, twenty wounded). The eight parts imitate each other at various successions (also mathematically calculated), attempting to emulate not only Renaissance imitation, but also echoes, reverb, and fade-outs (all elements that I use in my fixed media and instrumental works). Consequently, someone could use only one of each Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass parts, and still get a convincing (though not quite intended) version of the piece.

The text draws both on the Mass and Requiem settings, which differ only in the phrases miserere nobis and dona nobis pacem in the Mass version, but dona eis requiem and dona eis requiem aeternum in the Requiem. Since this work is a spiritual prayer that I pray regularly, as well as a commemoration of people who were wounded or murdered, and thirdly as a prayer for world peace in general, this Agnus Dei uses both text variants.

Agnus Dei Ian Evans Guthrie

cresc.

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook

Agnus Dei | Ian Evans Guthrie | MusicSpoke

Published on Jul 24, 2024

MusicSpoke

A couple years ago, I created my own setting of the In Paradisum, partly in response to deaths in the families of some of my students. It was also my first attempt to write in an imitative counterpoint style, while still retaining some of the modern harmonies that I like to use in my solo songs and instrumental works. This Agnus Dei comes from a similar situation: The KC Chiefs Shooting in 2024. Unlike my previous choral pieces, it is not a cappella, but neither is the piano merely an accompaniment. Instead, the piano serves as a percussive instrument of sorts, marking the various shots at mathematically demarcated points (which, at the time of writing, were one dead, twenty wounded). The eight parts imitate each other at various successions (also mathematically calculated), attempting to emulate not only Renaissance imitation, but also echoes, reverb, and fade-outs (all elements that I use in my fixed media and instrumental works). Consequently, someone could use only one of each Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Ba