O Magnum Mysterium

This peace is incredibly beautiful. The voices are angelic, sounding as if the praise is coming straight from heaven. The mysterious sound to personify the mysteries of the Lord is also captured. This is captured in the common movement between consonance and dissonance, the variation between the movement and timing of voices, and the frequently delaying the complete sounding of a chord. The phrasing of the piece is dictated mostly by the words of the piece, usually ending on a melisma of the final syllable (ex. do-mi-nu), and being made clear by the breathing of the choir or a short pause. Also, a phrase ending often is made very clear by the final arrival to the complete consonant chord after non-chord tones had created sharp dissonance. There is no definite form to the piece; it is free=floating and continuous.