Doug Purl wrote:

>Every once in a while, in the few films I can watch past the first few
>minutes, I encounter some wonderful, ethereal music, chorus and orchestra
>floating in a vast acoustic suggestive of time, space, and completion
>without end.  Sometimes it turns out to be Verdi or Puccini, and I need
>only think a bit or be reminded by the end credits.
>
>I am open for suggestions.  Does anyone know of choral compositions wherein
>inspiration lasts the length of the piece, and beauty solaces even tragedy?

Definitely Buxtehude: "Membra Jesu Nostri", especially in the Gardiner
version on Archiv - breathtakingly pure and ethereal, yet amazingly
sensuous ...

 .... but, Bach's senior, sorry, and certainly bearing no relation to
the Puccini or Verdi sometimes heard in those few films ...  Rossini's
admirable "Stabat Mater" might be nearer that mark.

Christine Labroche