NAJI HAKIM
NAJI HAKIM

Missa Redemptionis for choir a cappella

Title, Duration, Place, Year, Publisher, Dedicated to, Premiere (performer(s), place, date)

MISSA REDEMPTIONIS for SATB a cappella, 20', Bayonne, 1995, U.M.P., to Fredrik Malmberg, Capella Nova, Malmö Dir.: Fredrik Malmberg, Malmö, 10.02.96

"Today, as yesterday, musicians, composers, cantors of liturgical chapels, organists and Church instrumentalists must feel the need for a serious and strict professional formation. They should mostly be conscious of the fact that not one of their creations or interpretations can escape the obligation of being an inspired work, adequate and watchful for aesthetic dignity, whereby it transforms itself into a prayer of adoration, when in the course of liturgical action, it expresses in sound the mystery of faith"
(John Paul II - 'Sacred music at the service of the word of God and of the liturgy', 1994)

After the Missa Ressurrectionis for soprano solo a cappella (1994), a prayer of the soul in ecstasy facing the empty tomb, the Missa Redemptionis, for choir a cappella is a celebration of the Church, the mystical body of Christ, through the mystery of the redemption. It is based on free material, and its harmonies are mainly articulated on various heptatonic scales. The Latin text of the Roman Mass is treated in a syllabic style, in a manner that assures its intelligibilty and respects its natural rhythmic declamation.

Naji Hakim : Missa Redemptionis, page 22, excerpt from the autograph manuscript