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large orchestra and a choir of 150 voices, as well as three hand-picked soloists, tenor Hugh Smith, mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe, and baritone Mark Oswald. They are accompanied by the entire family of strings and woodwinds, brass and percussion of all sorts, includ- ing drums of different sizes, bells, carillons and cymbals. They produce an imposing mass of sound.

Despite such an abundance — I nearly wrote overabundance — of timbres, the composer never allows his music to become pompous, and there resides his genius. He pours it on, yet maintains a just balance. For me it is remarkable, at once intense and painful, gratifying to the ear, and poignant for the emo- tions it awakens. The composer’s use of dynamics is part of its appeal, but so is his choice of the English texts, drawn from the works of celebrated American poets who have trained a bitter eye on war.

Three quotations from Notes on the poetic text which you’ll find in the CD booklet: “When you hear the poetic texts in An American Requiem, it is our belief

that each word of the nine poems has risen from a great depth and carries the phosphor trail of other works.”

And: “An American Requiem opens

with Walt Whitman, our democratic and roving eye, which sees a ‘new-made double grave.’” And further on: “This strange, almost unbelievable, image conjured around 1863…floats up to us as a turbulent ghost image that might have been written the

night of September 11th by a poet who lives in Battery Park City.”

For too long the requiem has offered privileged access only to the erudite, able to understand dead languages. Thanks to Brahms, who dared to add the ver- nacular to the all-Latin Catholic liturgy, and to those who followed his daring innovation, a wider public can follow the text and comprehend it. Requiems have ceased to be opaque.

As for the music itself, it is of great beauty, with a use of dynamics cal- culated to touch our noblest, deepest sentiments.

The Dies Irae opens with the light use of per- cussion, which sets up the choppy rhythm which fol- lows, with brass, drums and the sforzando choir. All the instruments are used to punctuate most effectively this magnificent aria.

The Latin verses touch the spiritual dimension of the relationship of humans to the Supreme Being: confusion, fear, resistance, anger, sadness, but hope as well. With few exceptions these verses are sung by the choir. The English texts are sung by the solo- ists, either individually

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or together, and address at once the understanding and the emotions.

Here is the tenor, in the Dies Irae:

Down a new made double grave. Now nearer blow the bugles

and the drums strike more convulsive

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 73

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