Village Composer Scales the Heights to Honor His Mother

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

Last week “Requiem for My Mother,” a classically structured mass by Village musician Stephen Edwards, bounced into Billboard Magazine’s classical charts at number seven.

It was positioned between performances by Yo Yo Ma and Murray Pariah, who had the might of powerful music labels behind them.

“Requiem,” however, is an “indie” production on Edwards’ own label, Music for Moving Images, which may be the Palisades’ first homegrown classical music company.

How did Edwards, a mid-westerner who relocated to the Palisades 20 years ago to raise two girls because he appreciated its “small-town values,” manage to jostle his way into the big boys’ club? And with an ancient Catholic liturgy at that?

Endorsements by fans such as John Williams, the Star Wars (etc.) composer, helped connections built up by scoring literally dozens of Hollywood movies, from Christopher Nolan’s “The Prestige” to “Dallas Buyers Club” to the next Antonio Banderas movie, “Stoic.”

But “Requiem” also generated word of mouth praise among lovers of serious music, potentially creating a crossover hit unseen since Gorecki’s “Symphony No. 3,” which shares some of its intense passion, pain and melody.

And all from a creative upsurge that Edwards said, talking to the Palisadian-Post from his Swarthmore studio last week, he was compelled to ride out and transcribe.

“I lost first my mother and then my father within nine months. They had been healthy, traveling the world, so I was not prepared for that,” he explained. “I am a musician so I was compelled to write a mass for the dead, to help with the healing, and in the traditional structure, in Latin, because that felt right. It gave it power.

“Although stepping in the tradition of great requiem masses written by Mozart and Verdi, for his parents, was daunting and there were times, as when I was writing the ‘Dies Irae’ [section] that I felt overcome. But I pressed ahead for my mother, [Rosie Savarino Edwards].

“As a kid, she made me learn my Beethoven scales before I could go out and play ball, and encouraged me all the way through. She has amazingly eclectic tastes and was my most formative musical inspiration, so after her death in 2006 I was in deep shock.

“I was left not knowing what to do with myself, a feeling of helplessness. Until I found the music.”

The music was composed over two years in a number of venues, from his home studio to the strong acoustic of Corpus Christi Church in the Village.

And once it started being heard in public, the mass for the dead took on a life of its own.

The most insane moment came in November 2008 when it was performed with a full orchestra from Prague and dozens of choral singers aged between 8 and 85 in Vatican City.

There were nearly 300 performers involved in the world premiere, and the famously difficult-to-impress Romans were overwhelmed.

In 2014, Edwards was invited to return to Rome to perform a “stripped down” version under the gaze of Michelangelo’s Creator in the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.

It was, recalled Edwards, as the subtitle of a subsequent documentary summarized, a performance of a lifetime.

The documentary has been on repeat on PBS stations across the nation over recent weeks, helping propel the audio version of the requiem into the Billboard charts.

“I funded it all myself, recruiting publicity advisors from the net and making it all up as I went along, and I may never get the money back but it’s all been worth it,” Edwards said.

And his next task? Recording the “MTV unplugged,” stripped-down version of “Requiem” by himself on his home Steinway. Always with the shadow of Rosie at his elbow.