Setting any text to music could be seen as a way to magnify and to add an extra dimension to its meaning; similarly, this setting of one of the most widely known Catholic prayers takes its musical cues from the dramatic concepts embodied in the composite phrases of the text—from awe of the Divine to the realization of mortality. It expands an ordinary recitation into an emotional journey.

The opening chord, an arpeggiating Gmaj7, is the motif from which much of the piece’s thematic material unfolds. Streams of overlapping voices, inspired by Renaissance polyphony, are continuously driven toward moments of quiet homophony. Frequent changes of meter are used to evoke a sense of rhythmic elasticity reminiscent of plainchant.