Libera me I WAB 21

Anton Bruckner’s Libera me is a powerful setting of the traditional Requiem text. It would be especially fitting for services in Lent, All Souls’ Day, or for a funeral. The text, taken from the Office of the Dead, begins with a plea for deliverance from eternal death at the terrifying Day of Judgement, when heaven and earth will be shaken and the world judged by fire. The choir’s dynamic and dramatic response to the text’s profound sense of awe and fear is palpable, particularly in the urgent repetitions of ‘Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra’. The music moves from intense anxiety to a solemn plea for eternal rest and perpetual light for the departed, concluding with a final, urgent appeal for liberation. This SATB setting in Latin offers rich harmonic and contrapuntal opportunities for an experienced choir.