CJ Replay: Morten Lauridsen

(An excerpt from the Choral Journal article The 2005 Raymond Brock Commission: Nocturnes [of Morten Lauridsen] by Milburn Price)

 

       In recent years, Lauridsen has spent the summer months at his beach cabin on a remote island off the northwest coast of Washington state. Regarding this place and its relationship to his compositions, he says: "This is a place of pristine beauty and serenity, an abiding calmness and oneness with nature. The Lux Aeterna, the 0 Magnum Mysterium, and other works were finished there on an old, fifty-dollar piano, and musical ideas were often generated on long walks on the beach or through the forest."

       Since 1967, Lauridsen has taught composition at the University of Southern California, including a period of time as chair of the department of composition at USC's Thornton School of Music from 1990-2002. He was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from1994-2001. Given the focus of his career in the Los Angeles area, it is fitting that he was invited to write the Raymond Brock Commission for the 2005 ACDA National Convention in Los Angeles.

       For the Brock Commission, Lauridsen chose to write a three-movement work titled Nocturnes, for SATB chorus and piano. The cycle sets three poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, Pablo Neruda, and James Agee, each addressing some aspect of the common. theme of "Night." It is not surprising that poetry drawn from diverse sources provides the texts for Nocturnes. An article about Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna that appeared in the February 2003 issue of the ChoraL JournaL included comments by the composer regarding his love for poetry.