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About the Piece:
This mournful, but hopeful piece tells the story of a soul's end-of-life journey, and it is based on the text of Henry Francis Lyte's beloved hymn, "Abide With Me." The work quotes the hymn-tune Eventide along with various Gregorian Chants from the Requiem Mass.
 
Throughout this piece, small fragments of text from the hymn, ‘Abide With Me’ are inscribed in the score. Each section of music corresponds to a particular phrase of text. Cast in a ternary (ABA) form, this work tells the story of a soul’s passage into eternal life. It begins with the affectation of surrender and childlike trust at the ‘eventide’ of human life, represented in a minor key, wedding the hymn tune ‘Abide With Me’ with the Gregorian chant, Requiem Aeternam.  At the conclusion of the placid and mournful A section, we transition to the B-section, which depicts the struggle associated with death. A third Gregorian Chant, the fateful Dies Irae plainchant melody enters briefly at this point—albeit in a disguised fashion. The growing intensity of this struggle is manifested musically by an increase in tempo and dynamics. This momentum culminates in a climactic, triumphant moment that evokes a rhetorical question asked in the hymn: “Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory.” Following this is a return of the A-section, wherein the sombre and mournful character that marked the A-section at the beginning of the piece gives way to a serene, yet ecstatic character. Furthermore, the Requiem Aeternam chant is replaced with the In Paradisum, which speaks of the deceased being welcomed into heaven.