Requiem and Kyrie

Notes


The opening lines are based on a passage from one of the books of the Apocrypha: 2 (4) Esdras: 34-35:

'Await your shepherd; he will give you everlasting rest...Be ready for the rewards of the kingdom, because the eternal light will shine upon you for evermore',
and on Psalm 65 (64): 1-2

'Praise is due to thee, O God, in Zion; and to thee shall vows be performed.
O thou who hearest prayer! To thee shall all flesh come on account of sins'.

Zion is the citadel of Jerusalem taken by David from the Jebusites (2 Samuel 5:6-7). The name came to signify God's holy hill at Jerusalem (Psalm 2: 6) or Jerusalem itself (Isaiah 1: 27) and it became the symbol of the contact between God and men, the point from which salvation radiates and the focus of the Messianic kingdom.

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Last updated: 8th June 1997