Dona Nobis Pacem

I frequently hear music in my dreams, but often it is too complex for me to remember upon waking. However, over the past several years, there have been a handful of times when I have been able to remember some of the music in a dream and transcribe it upon waking. The alto melody that opens my “Dona Nobis Pacem” is one such example, and in this case the melody and words came together from my dream. I’m not sure when exactly this dream happened, but my guess is that it was in the summer or fall of 2012. Shortly after, I worked out the soprano opening melody, but this then sat in my notebook until November 2014 when I approached it again and completed this setting. It wasn’t until having nearly completed this piece when I realized that the opening and closing sections are actually in the form of a canon just like the well-known traditional setting.