Requiem

Rutter wrote his Requiem in 1985, the year after his father's death, and shaped it as a seven-movement arch: the Latin Introit and Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Sanctus and Lux aeterna interleaved with two psalms and, at the centre, the burial sentences from the Book of Common Prayer sung in English. The scoring is deliberately modest — chamber orchestra with organ, or organ alone — which is one reason it spread so quickly through parish and college choirs. The first performance was given in Dallas in October 1985.