I wrote this piece at a time when my creative years are approaching the finishing line. I am aware of the myths surrounding Mozart’s famous Requiem but why not write one for my own funeral…
I started Sicut Cervus after moving to The Bungalow with my lovely companion Josie and beginning to feel the urge to embark on a new project. I picked up a work I had left unfinished several years ago and added a choir to remodel it into some kind of Requiem. I remembered the lines of a hymn (my catholic upbringing) by Palestrina, the theme of which I recall in the fugal passage towards the end. These lines are repeated 5 times like a rondo theme, interspersed with a poem by Victor Hugo, Ce que c’est que la mort, which I divided into four sections that seemed to me coherent fragments of Hugo’s musings on death. The element of sarcasm wasn’t lost on me and the desire to have control over my own death is reflected in the latin version I fabricated from the original. With hindsight I could have kept much closer to the second line:
Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum
ita desiderat anima mea ad (requiem aeternam).
A variety of musical references bears testimony to the eclectic range of my musical roots. The instrumentation was originally inspired by the ensemble in Kraanerg by Xenakis, which once dominated my composing ambitions. I doubled the solo strings to give it more body. Although at times I was tempted to add trumpets, I stuck to this configuration, arguing that it must be possible to work within the confines I had set myself. It is what it is…
Sicut Cervus is a trubute to my father Jacob Vriend who installed in me a broad musical appetite and my mother who gave me love and encouragement. I would like to add that the original dedication was to Sieuwert Verster who, at a late stage in my life, decided my music was worth celebrating on his label Attacca.
Jan Jacobszoon Vriend
July 2025
More a celebration of the long life of the composer than a commemoration of the dead. The music is vital and dynamic, painting pictures in sound. We begin with the sirens of a great city, fireworks, a cacophony of sound. And still the pictures morph. With a Mahlerian ability to weave into the soundscape a passing band, a circus and finally a mellow classical orchestra. Imagine how this would sound with a choir in a concert hall!
Robert Muir-Wood
Jan Vriend has never been afraid of wildly expansive music. In his Requiem he seizes new territory, in tone, rhythm, and great leaps and glissando cascades across the octaves. The result is near delirious at times, anchored by a percussive heartbeat that conjures up the plangent terror as well as awe inherent within every great requiem. The choir move from minor key melancholia to open fourths and major keys, as if receiving light through sound. The final minutes are marked by a sweet playfulness: peace in Vriend’s music vibrates with energy and delight. Imagine the impression it would make if performed by a real choir and orchestra.
Elizabeth Loudon
Jan Vriend’s ‘Sicut Cervus’ – (as the deer longs for the waters) is an accessible and effective work expressing, as it does, both the aspirations and the resignations of later life. The choral writing is well within the reach of any good amateur choir and the orchestral textures (for a modestly sized ensemble) are, as always with this composer, inventive and constantly surprising. I would recommend this work to anyone with an interest in promoting new music.
Tony Hymas
Dear Jan, great warrior!
(…) back from work in Italy I have already listened three times to your newest work.
Phew… am very, very moved.
Of course, I would rather listen with text and choir. Is there any prospect of a performance in the near future?
Yet, it already makes a terrific and very emotional impression.
Brilliant also the ending!
Sieuwert Verster
My ‘REQUIEM’ came into being not so much by design as by a force of nature. When, after a forced lull in my composition pursuits, I picked up a work I once meant to develop into a response to Xenakis’ colossal work Kraanerg, I capitulated under the weight of a realisation that an enterprise of this magnitude was beyond me at this stage of my life. I have often considered Kraanerg as the musical equivalent of a Jackson Pollock and for a long time it worked for me as a soundscape in the back of my mind. That capitulation felt like a handshake with the ultimate destiny I have to face. It now feels all the more timely since my eyesight suddenly took a turn for the worse after the completion of Sicut Cervus and will make any future work very cumbersome. So be it.
My attitude to death is very stoical and despite an apparent reference to religion I am a thoroughbred atheist. However I appreciate a good piece of music and a poetic metaphor that carries a deep feeling, hence the reference to Palestrina’s motet, a reminder of my catholic upbringing. Victor Hugo puts a delightful yet moderately farcical stamp on a serious issue in his poem about death. It somehow resonates with me…Â
Jan Vriend – August 2025
Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum,
(ad) requiem aeternam desidero
After
Sicut cervus desiderat ad fontes aquarum,
ita desiderat anima mea ad te, Deus.
Victor Hugo – Les Contemplations
Sicut etc.
Ne dites pas : mourir ; dites : naître. Croyez.
On voit ce que je vois et ce que vous voyez ;
On est l’homme mauvais que je suis, que vous êtes ;
On se rue aux plaisirs, aux tourbillons, aux fêtes ;
On tâche d’oublier le bas, la fin, l’écueil,
La sombre égalité du mal et du cercueil ;
Sicut etc.
Quoique le plus petit vaille le plus prospère ;
Car tous les hommes sont les fils du même père ;
Ils sont la même larme et sortent du même oeil.
On vit, usant ses jours à se remplir d’orgueil ;
On marche, on court, on rêve, on souffre, on penche, on tombe,
On monte. Quelle est donc cette aube ? C’est la tombe.
Sicut etc.
Où suis-je ? Dans la mort. Viens ! Un vent inconnu
Vous jette au seuil des cieux. On tremble ; on se voit nu,
Impur, hideux, noué des mille noeuds funèbres
De ses torts, de ses maux honteux, de ses ténèbres ;
Et soudain on entend quelqu’un dans l’infini
Qui chante, et par quelqu’un on sent qu’on est béni,
Sans voir la main d’où tombe à notre âme méchante
L’amour, et sans savoir quelle est la voix qui chante.
Sicut etc.
On arrive homme, deuil, glaçon, neige ; on se sent
Fondre et vivre ; et, d’extase et d’azur s’emplissant,
Tout notre être frémit de la défaite étrange
Du monstre qui devient dans la lumière un ange.
Sicut etc.
Victor Hugo, Les contemplations