I am 82 and sang tenor in the choir of an Episcopal Church for 32 years. I will be finding out much sooner than most of you as to the music that will be sung when we go home to meet God. I have sung everything from the music of Palestrina to Ola Gjeilo. The music of Morten Lauridsen has a special place in my heart, especially "ETERNAL LIGHT". My God Bless Us all.

I just turned 80, and decided, long ago, that when MY time comes, this music will heal the souls of those left behind, and they will feel the love I bore for all of them, and be happy my memory!

I remember the first time I ever heard this, I was driving home in the early evening and listening to KUSC. At some point during this piece, I realized I was crying - I actually pulled over, watched the sun set and listened to the end. I wasn't even embarrassed at the tears. Such soul-filling beauty!

I am a 16 year old girl who will be traveling to New York with my high school choir to perform this is Carnegie Hall, my instructor requested that we listen to the piece over break to help us get accustomed to it, I’m not one for slow music but this is gorgeous and I’m so excited for this experience, New York here we come!!!

Whitacre, Lauridsen and Rutter et al, an elevation in choral music.........to another world....and another time.

The first time I heard this piece was in the car on the radio. I pulled off the road into a parking area and just sat and listened with closed eyes., so transported was I to another realm. When the piece came to an end it was difficult to return the real world.

I read once that Schubert had a dream after the young daughter of a friend had died that he stood and watched a circle of men walking around her tomb listening to music. Finally they let him into the circle and he could hear the music too. You really have to wonder if some people literally hear angels? This music makes you think that much inspiration is quite real. I think of Beethoven in that terrible silence of deafness actually hearing another source of sound. Did he also hear the 9th symphony and not just compose it? You just have to wonder when music like the music of the spheres is handed to humans to sing. I am a cancer patient. My greatest healing I think comes from music and especially choral music. I have sung it all my life. What a joy now to hold it in my heart, to let it hold me until fear and grief and ignorance dissolves. Thank you Morten wherever you are.

I was fortunate enough to take part in a rehearsal of this amazing piece on the day after receiving good news following a mammogram. The music uplifted my already grateful soul and the whole rehearsal was as a heartfelt prayer of thanksgiving on my part. . We are blessed to be able to sing this wonderful piece.

Morten Lauridsen's music is so beautiful, touching my soul. It causes me to weep with beauty of the experience. Transcendent!

My wife died of breast cancer in 1999. The choir at Geneva Presbyterian Church, Laguna Hill, CA sang Lux Aeterna at her funeral. I hope when I pass away that a choir will send me to heaven with this beautiful music.

people who put adverts in the middle of masterpieces are just killin me over here. You're killin me Smalls!

I played in this performance. Rest in Peace maestro Salamunovich.

Got to sing this piece in my college choir, as well as meet Mr. Lauridsen. One of my favorite choir memories. He talked about his mother inspiring him to compose this piece and it was very touching.

As I get older (in my mid 40s), I find myself more and more leaving behind music that merely excites me or inspires aggressiveness (much of rock n' roll, for example). Instead, I yearn after music that elevates my soul and brings joy and peace to my heart. Lauridsen's music does that for me.

I was able to sing this in New York with choirs from all over the country, and I have to say-one of the most amazing experiences of my life.

As an architect and astronomer, I occasionally play this when up late drawing or doing variable star astronomical observing. It never fails to inspire a moment, leaning back, of expansive reflections. In particular the movement at 15:08. It's absolutely halting...many times I've welled up. Thank you to all those who created such beauty for the rest of the human race to relish.

Touches something deeply unexplainable in a hauntingly beautiful way. As if something lost is found and you’re left in wonderment

Only someone with great depth, spirituality, and goodness can write something like this. Morten Lauridsen isn't just a composer. He is a link to that other side which our eyes cannot appreciate just yet.

I had not cried in 3 years despite significant losses. When singing this piece our director said, "This breaks my heart a little bit" about the O Nata Lux. Listening to this recording I was finally able to cry. Very few things in this world are so beautiful they hurt. Thank you, Lauridsen.

I lost both of my grandparents last August - 8 days apart. This work gives me great comfort in the knowledge that they are free from suffering and are with God. I simply cannot imagine the overwhelming feeling of Peace they are feeling right now - their 100-year-old bodies transformed to eternal ones - the music they are hearing - the sights that they are seeing...I was so blessed to have had them until I was 55 years old. But the double-edged sword is that there is a hole in my life that isn't fillable until I see them again. I miss them every single day - and will until I, too, close my eyes in death. May Light Perpetual Shine on them. May they Rest in Peace and Rise in Glory. May it be so. Soli Deo Gloria. Amen.

My chorale had the extreme privilege of performing this amazingly beautiful work throughout Italy in 2011. It still resonates in my heart as one of the most impactful musical works I've ever performed. You cannot help but feel like you are surrounded by angels when you are in the midst of it all.

When my times comes, I hope this is music that greats me.

By God's grace, gift and favor, I am a classical musician, composer, teacher, violist and an Anglican choirmaster - organist. I am also a Christian mystic. I hear pieces like this all the time; in my head, heart, mind and soul. I talk to God daily and many have been the times that I am simply overwhelmed. Its not big grandiose things that overwhelm, but rather the simplest of little, sweet and ever so tenderly soft things. For its in the still small voice that the fullness of LOVE is given to us - freely and unconditionally. If only we would pass along to everyone, that gift of LOVE, IN THE SILENCE OF A KISS, THE WARNTH OF AN EMBRACE, AND THE SACRIFICE OF LIFE. Music IS the language of heaven and we have only to humble ourselves, bow our hearts and listen. God bless you all and may the Light of His peace shine on and radiate from you eternally.

A couple of times in my life I have had dreams so unbearably beautiful that I woke weeping. The Introitus takes me there.

I sang this with my choir and three others at Carnegie Hall back in May. I still get emotional listening to this.

I sang this at Carnegie hall with my school and other choirs and I have to say it is the most beautiful piece I have ever sang and it was one of the best experiences of my life so far.

This sound is truly ethereal...and takes us truly beyond where we have been used to being transported. Lauridsen's harmonies must be a foretaste of what we will experience in the life awaiting us. How reverent...how peaceful...how beautiful!!! Praise God that this has graced my present life!! Geraldine Ardissone Rudee....December 2017

I have been using your upload of Lux Aeterna every night for weeks now to help me quiet my mind before going to bed. I don’t pray much anymore and, in many ways, have lost my faith. Too much cruelty and ugliness in this world has shaken me, but this music transcends all.

I sang this piece in Carnegie Hall my senior year of high school. it was a once in a lifetime experience and I was filled with so much emotion the entire time.

God bless Morten Lauridsen for lifting our souls with his glorious music. I heard his "O magnum mysterium" for the first time this evening on Classic FM and was transfixed, Glory, Glory, Glory. Thanks Morten

I sang this two years ago with my college choir and orchestra. It is always the piece I need to listen to be productive or get in the right headspace for anything. The third movement will always be my favorite.

This is simply mind blowing. It takes me to another place. It is mesmerising, it is so beautiful.

I love listening to this around Christmas.

I've been enjoying this transcendent and profoundly inspirational work for years now. I am ever thankful that a friend had an extra ticket to hear the LA Master Chorale at the Overture Center in Madison, WI when they sang this heaven-sent piece along with many others. It stirs my soul and touches nameless places that only spirit on the wind can reach.

I performed in this chorus in college fall of 2014 at UNM with my friend...and Morten Lauridsen helped direct it. I was quite impressed with our chorus made up off people who could sing and gave their free time to perform this and so was he. It was such an amazing experience! Never forgetting that night on the stage! Not ever! The emotions, the thrill, the sheer beauty of this piece! Words failed me...so just let the music speak for itself.

I sang this in an 80 person chorus, + orchestra, this past weekend. What an absolutely unforgettable experience ! Endlessly beautiful !

I have not heard every song written for choir ever. But I have heard enough to say that this is one of the most beautiful pieces of choral music ever written. Someone has described this piece as the sound of heaven and I could not agree more. When I meet my Lord and savior face to face I hope Lauridsen's Lux Æterna greets me.

Stunningly gorgeous music. I've sung sacred choral music for almost 60 years and would give anything to be in a group perfomring this. Can you just imagine being in an IMAX theatre in total surround sound and imagery...transforming indeed. This is so heavenly.....

I’m looking forward to singing this beautiful work with BCI and Tom Hall in Richmond, VA this summer. The music just brings tears to my eyes!

Referring to your comment on Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna. I think that at times with certain composers and their music we are present or we walk by and in some way the doorway to heaven is ajar and we can hear and feel all that wonderful-ness and let it fill us up. I think Morten Lauridsen is one of those composers to whom the door is open as he meditates and composes for us.

So sorry to see this beautiful performance ruined by the ads.

I don't know what Heaven is like, but I imagine it sounds like this. Thank you, Maestro Lauridsen, for this beautiful piece.

My very first encounter with Morten Lauridsen was "Les Chansons des Roses", I happened to be listening to my favorite Aria "The Flower Duet" by Delibes and the Chansons followed it.... (oh I'm having goosebumps right now listening to this piece as write this comment) I was transported as many of you here have said, to what Heaven must surely feel and sound like. I have since become an enduring fan of Mr. Lauridsen's works. Thank you for sharing this magnificent piece.

I sung this last year in Duke chapel with durham chorus council and it was amazing

Glorious. God’s voice expressed in music.

I heard this on the radio while driving home a few weeks after 9/11. This music was a ray of hope during a very dark and terrible time.

I had never heard of Morten Lauridsen when I heard this piece by chance at a concert in Prague - and was blown away by it!. Hearing it again here it is even better than I remembered - an utterly glorious piece in all its changing moods. As someone else has posted here 'this is what heaven sounds like.' What more need be said?

Exquisite - the opening measures are sublime!

As a UCLA graduate, I was never inclined to give USC any props. Morton Lauridsen's association with USC changes that immediately and forever.

I can imagine this song radiating beyond our little planet, going through our solar system, then between the stars. Some extra - terrestrial civilization might think it's Earth's anthem.

his music..of the true mystic...

Heavenly, heavenly music!

Thanks so much for this very special celestial journey !

Glorious piece of music, beautifully performed. When I hear Morten, I often feel, "This is what heaven sounds like. This is how angels sing". And you can quote me!

I keep coming back to this. I am addicted to its depth and profundity. Like a Bruckner symphony it transports beyond the firmament, time and space. Incredible piece of music!

We're doing this in March. A member of our choir is singing in this recording--Paul Salamunovich's daughter-in-law.

Just performed this with the man himself in the audience. Truly wonderful.

My favorite groups of all time: The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd. They still are!. But at 63, If I had to choose only one, it would be this monumental work by Maestro Morten Lauridsen. His music "has it all... says it all!". It elevates my soul, inner self, persona, my core, my being...as it removes the shield that blinds us from reconnecting with whom we really are as humans in our short passage on this earth, like the zillions of stars that cannot be seen during the day as we are too engaged in taking care of our earthy bodies.

I've had the pleasure of singing in a performance of this with the Maestro. Requiescat in pace, Mr. Salamunovich (as I first knew him)

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to sing this while on a tour of Italy with newVoices chorus, along with the Tulsa Oratorio Chorus in July 2015. A glorious experience!

15m09s... grand. Soaring, gloriously uplifting. -- I wrote the above statement in Aug2017. Since then, I have heard all the performances of Lux Aeterna on KZfaq. IMO, this performance is the definitive one. Every measure by itself is choral, orchestral, and recording perfection.

My college choir and orchestra just finished performing this work this past weekend and of all the beautiful pieces we've done over the past 4 years, this was one of my favorites. Gonna miss performing this.

Fantastic music, wonderfully beautiful performance.... Comforting in times of deep sorrow....

I'm performing this with my university orchestra and the choir there on Sunday and my favorite part about this piece (other than the emotion it evokes in my soul) is the low parts in the low instruments like cello and bass. As a cellist it's extremely fun to play the low parts of the harmonies

Performed this piece in Brandenburg choral festival, gorgeous piece, favourite ever

STUNNING MUSIC !!! THANKS MORTEN LAURIDSEN. FROM U.K. (2022).

I thought that the most beautiful video I have ever watched......it felt like we all were being taken a ride though the universe on our way to heaven......I loved it.......

Soooo beautiful, catastrophic ads

A few years ago I sang this with a wonderful choir. It still gives me goose bumps.

No words. As a music music composition major in college, I can only hope to write something even remotely comparable to this absolute masterpiece.

As a singer and accompanist with a largely unremembered group called The Norman Luboff Choir, I love what this music stirred in me. Thank you., Maestro,

00:00 Requiem Æternam 6:31 In te Domine Speravi 10:20 O Nata Lux 15:09 Veni, Sancte Spiritus 17:30 Agnus Dei

Heaven sounds like this...this has changed my life forever. I have been looking for music like this for so long..I heard it in the car Sunday morning. I cried all the way to my event.

This is most definitely the best piece ever. A thing of beauty. Well done Mr Lauridsen. Sang it in the Brandenburg choral festival in January, first time I had heard of Lauridsen, now he is my favourite ever composer!

Music from Heaven ..... definitely .....

I sang the o nata lux in Carnegie Hall in 1997. It was the experience of a lifetime.

I am back at the same beach, St. Augustine, preparing to go watch the sunrise over the same dune over walk, as it's ascent into the clouds is accompanied by Lauridsen's musical sunrises and waltz with the Holy Spirit. Movement 4, Veni Sanctus Spiritus. Three years later, this has become a ritual of worship of our Creator!

Lauridsen will be our "artist in residence" in two weeks, and we are performing this, among other things. Such a glorious, deceptively difficult piece.

As a native Los Angeleno and now living in the Seattle area, I miss KUSC fm and the beautiful music of The Los Angeles Master Chorale. I was fortunate to see and hear the LA master chorale with Maestro Salamunovich conducting

I pity the fools who down-voted this piece. It is beautiful. However, I am saddened that I don't believe I have ever heard this piece until now.

Hauntingly beautiful, thank you.

Damn, if this isn't the most beautiful piece of music I've EVER heard!! Actually heard it for the first time a couple years ago, and fell in love with it - the passion behind it is indescribable! Was just listening to it with my earbuds, and got chills big time during the course of the performance. What a thrill it would be to see it performed live...

I like how his Introitus sounds just like his O Magnum Mysterium.

This is the best recording of this modern masterpiece. Got my copy autographed by Paul Salamunovich too. It’s very soothing anytime but especially for grief.

When I began to listen this wonderful "Requiem" I felt the same atmosphere than in the Requiem og Fauré or Duruflé : peaceful, hopeful, but in fact, it is very different, including the classical music, the atmosphere of the anglican cathedrals and the contemporary film music, all that elevated at a higher place : you can guess the heavenly Jerusalem close to you !

In all the (non-commercial-popular) music composed in the late 20th century, with its fascinations with serialism, dissonance, amelodicism, and other academic esotericism, it is all too rare to stumble on something like this. It is hard to believe that this is modern music! Like Pyotr Goncharov, he has kept the old idioms alive.

Why have I never heard this before. It’s amazing

This version by Paul Salamunovich with LA Master Chorale is the best of the 5 or 6 I've heard.

I cannot wait to perform this piece in choir :D

I started singing choral music when I was 23 and did so until I was 57, when a medical condition affected my voice and I had to drop out. After a couple of years, I finally regained my voice and returned to sing again. The time off had shrunk my range and I was made S2 after having sung nothing but S1 for all those years and I ended up dropping out partly because of that and partly because of a new interest that often came in conflict with rehearsals (I always chose rehearsals, but I wasn't always happy about it in these instances), and I have to say that listening to this is the first time in the three years since I left the San Francisco Choral Society that I'm really sorry I didn't stick it out while I expanded my range to its former glory. It's sad to think I'll never perform this piece again; to me it recalls and epitomizes the deep connection I felt to my soul and to those singing around me.

Thank you Thomas for this video. I heard this music yesterday on the radio KUSC. It touched my soul. Happy New Year!

My choir is singing this this fall. so excited!!!!

I really can't believe anyone could possibly give this a thumbs down. REALLY??? I have no words that can describe how I feel about this piece. Total, exquisite beauty comes close...how can you find words that capture the Divine so amazingly?

Breathtaking. The Eternal Light is felt.

What is most real for inspired musicians are the illusions they create with their music. The rest is just quicksand 🙋

I got to sing this at Carnegie Hall last year

Sublime and transcendent.

Just beautiful.

This is so beautiful and peaceful. I love it.

Beyond exquisite! WOW!