Requiem Æternam

‘Had I not lived during the iron age of mankind, I would have died previously or been born later!’ These opening verses by Hesiod form the key to my 18-minute Requiem Aeternam. Despite the ominous nature of the opening lines sung by the solo soprano a cappella, the initial melody returns towards the end in a resolute orchestral apotheosis of hope. My Requiem Aeternam is therefore not conceived within a clerical context, but as a type of swan song to our world in which the focus is not on grief for the sole redeemer, but instead on the way that ‘human beings of the iron age’ interact towards ourselves, our environment and consequently also towards our own planet. Christian Jost