Missa Inquirendi is a version of the Latin Mass inspired by a long and complicated relationship with my Catholic faith. I grew up attending church and weekly classes, my grandparents bought a bible for me which I read front to back, and I loved the seasonal rhythms and history of the church. What truly captured my attention though was the music. What started with a love of the modal chant-like melodies we sang each week in mass was transformed by my first introduction to Mozart’s Requiem. From Mozart, I went to Faure’s Requiem, and from Faure I moved on to Dvorak’s Requiem. I then discovered that composers wrote religious music that wasn’t only about death and became completely swept up in the sacred choral music of Francis Poulenc and particularly his Stabat Mater. I spent countless nights in my room, eyes closed, headphones on, listening to that brooding work and feeling it resonate deep within me. I read books about Poulenc and was fascinated by his own complicated relationship to the church. In Poulenc, I saw a man who was personally sidelined by the church’s teachings, yet drawn to it all the same, inspired by acts of devotion and faith in the unknowable. 

Much like Poulenc and many others who grew up Catholic, I now have a very different relationship with the church and with God than I did all those years ago. Each movement of this mass is an exploration of a different facet of my belief that has been complicated over the years. Ultimately, this mass is still a call to faith, but it's a call to a messier sort of faith. It's a call to a faith that is as complicated as the people we were created to be.

There are dissonances and extended techniques used throughout Missa Inquirendi. I’ve written most of them in a way that makes them relatively easy to approach, mostly by steps and growing out of a common tone. No dissonance is more striking than the opening and closing themes of the Kyrie, and while the traditional three-part text is intact, the "eleison" is never finished, instead devolving into hissing, buzzing, overtones, and bird sounds. The dissonances and other harsh or unusual sounds work best when performed with a commitment to the idea and an embrace of what’s on the page. The intended tone of fortes and tight dissonances is a forward and bright placement.

The Gloria and the middle section of the Sanctus represent the militaristic past (and sometimes present) of religious faith. The rhythmic motives of these movements (as well as the B section of the Credo) are supposed to be intimidating and should be performed as tightly and percussively as possible. The Credo also has some new and adapted text. "Cupio credere, credere cupio credo" is supposed to translate to "I want to believe, I believe that I want to believe". Meanwhile, in the B section, the high voices profess the almost mystical properties of the physics of sound and how they affect our brains.

Finally, the Agnus Dei represents what I love about religion and the church. It is pure beauty and longing for transcendence. There is still dissonance, but now it's part of the human experience and our relationship to the divine.