Pie Jesu which means 'Merciful Jesus' is the seminal composition from Requiem for 9/11, the first piece composed of 12 movements. Visually, I have always heard this as the 'soundtrack' to Michaelangelo's Pieta in the Vatican.
After I committed to writing the work, my wife Joan and I were on an extended escape to our former beach house in Avalon, New Jersey at the end of March in 2002. As Avalon has a beautiful pier at the end of 30th Street, I was walking alone on a cold deserted beach and stopped underneath the pier. Listening to the rhythm of the waves, this music was 'given' to me. I just heard it, went home and wrote it out note for note, for real. (This was also true in the writing of 'The Commission' from Mass for the Homeless.) To be clear, composition for me is a divine/mystical process and has always been since I began writing music in my later teen years. I can't really explain it, all I know is that I experience it and try to 'shut up and get out of its way'. I wish to thank Tony Kosar, Chair of theTheory/Composition Department, Westminster Choir College, Princeton for his encouragement and support in the earliest days of writing Requiem. Although this performance of 'Pie Jesu' features the late Betsy Kent, one of University of Delaware's finest accompanists ever, I prefer the aria accompanied by harp. Soprano Courtney Ames is the consummate extraordinary artist who has interpreted 'Pie Jesu' at the 2012 premiere at Wilmington (DE) Grand Opera House as well as performed in a new realization as a duet with Andrea Lauren Brown. The latter is available for viewing as Track Ten (X) from the 2021 Ensemble Version on this website.