“Eternal peace, grant unto them, O Lord, and let the perpetual light shine upon them.” With those words, Duruflé’s incandescent Mass for the Dead begins. Not a rafter-shaking Requiem, but one whose music speaks of consolation and acceptance: “…the ultimate answer of Faith to all the questions by the flight of the soul to Paradise,” according to the composer. Led by James Allbritten, the UNCSA Cantata Singers, UNCSA Symphony Orchestra, and organist Timothy Olsen perform this fervent work of the late 1940s with its echoes of Gregorian chant, Ravel and Debussy.
