Agnus Dei

I have a strange obsession with requiems. 

There's an odd infatuation that I have with these haunting melodies that speak of death. 

Brahms. Rutter. Fauré. Mozart. And more. 

Requiems comfort me. They speak to me. 

My all time favorite movement from any requiem though is the Agnus Dei from the John Rutter Requiem. Agnus Dei translates into lamb of god, who taketh away the sins of the world. It's gorgeous. 

It's also incredibly depressing. For in the middle of the piece, Rutter has the basses and tenors repeat the phrase in the midst of life, we are in death over and over and over again. 

There's not much you can do to make that more depressing.  

But at the end of the movement, (and this is the part that I truly love to pieces), Rutter's mood changes. 

It changes...into lyrics that are perfect as as I sit here on this Holy Saturday, Good Friday fresh in my mind, but knowing that Easter Sunday will come with the next rising of the sun. 

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord:
he that believeth in me, though he were dead,
...yet shall he live:
and whosoever liveth and believeth in me
...shall never die.