Abstract
This monumental work, thought to be the longest Requiem ever written – comprising 28 movements, mostly extended polyphonic motets, sequenced into four cantatas, drawn from and expanding the Latin Requiem text – represents the culmination of nearly two decades of compositional research: the Requiem for the Time of the End systematically investigates how large-scale musical form can be generated through the interaction of individually simple melodic processes operating under rule-based constraints, extending and synthesising innovations first explored in earlier, large-scale works (The I AM Sayings, XL, Missa Unitatis). The work generates new knowledge in the intersection of algorithmic compositional thinking and vocal polyphony, demonstrating that complex emergent forms can arise from a constrained yet intuitive creative methodology. The composition of the Requiem has laid the foundations for the researcher’s more recent explicit exploration of the “murmuration” technique – in which independent vocal lines coalesce into emergent collective textures, analogous to the behaviour of starling murmurations.