I first encountered this piece of music in Terence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line”, in early scenes portraying the initially pacific encounter between US military scouts and the inhabitants of Guadacanal. Much later I heard the music in the context of Gabriel Faure Requiem. There is a sublime calm and poise to this evocation of heavenly bliss, quite a counterpoise to the wrath of the Dies Irae in other requiae (is that the right plural) most famously Mozart’s.
Séamus Sweeney 