SOFTW RECKAFEEDB
And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong [death-march] enwraps me.
The moon gives you light And the bugles and drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, My heart gives you love.
That text is from renown poet Walt Whitman. Now listen to the baritone in the Lacrimosa — Pie Jesu, with another Whitman text:
Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day…
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me
the battlefield spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night, Passing sweet hours,
immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade Not a tear, not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, Vigil for you my son and my soldier
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Don’t miss the Sanctus, with wildly ringing bells, rolling drums, strings, and the tenor singing the glory of the Almighty in alternation with the choir. The Hosanna is extraordinary, with voices, percussion and brass, a veritable song of praise, followed by the Benedictus.
The Agnus Dei, Lay this Body Down, sung by the mezzo soprano, is emi- nently touching. The text is by Michael Harper.
Can’t you see
What love and heartache’s done to me I’m not the same as I used to be This is my last affair
Two other illustrious poets are featured, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and an American poet identified in the text as H.D. (Hilda Doolittle). A touching anonymous Negro Spiritual is sung by the baritone.
The final Lux Æterna is sung at
pppvolume by the choir. It is a gentle conclusion, peaceful, in which the fear of the Final Judgement is resolved in an act of faith and hope on the part of souls awaiting their Maker.
This, then, is a 21st Century Requiem that will put you through an entire range of emotions, and orient your reflection toward the passage from temporal to eternal life, at least as presented by the Christian church. First performed in November 2001, this Requiem can be classed among the great ones: Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, brahms, Dvorak, and Fauré, and closer to our own day those of British composers Benjamin Brit- ten, John Rutter…and Andrew Lloyd Webber, whose Pie Jesu haunts the first- time listener long after it ends.
At the summit of his art at the age of 50, Richard Danielpour is one of the cream of contemporary composers, and his celebrity did not begin with this work. He has penned other music that has been much played and recorded, and has known major success: operas, concertos, symphonies, ballets, chamber music, and other genres.
The CD booklet is generous with details on the composer as well as on the orchestra, the choir and their respective conductors, Carl St. Clair and John Alexander. If this music is new to you, that is more than useful.
Suite Española Frühbeck de Burgos/New Philharmonia
FIM XR24 068
Rejskind: This recording is from late 1967, the golden age of Decca (known in North America as London for reasons of trade mark conflict). It had not yet been swallowed up by the Polygram/Philips empire, in which it would become merely a brand name. And it was busy making new recordings of the classical repertoire in the then distinctive ffrr (Full Frequency Range Recording) style. The stereo LP was a mere decade old, and not all the treasury of music had yet been redone.
At the same time Decca had not yet begun playing it safe, recording familiar warhorses that could be counted on to sell in large numbers. This recording is an unusual one, and one I suspect few companies would tackle today. A shame, because it is exceptional.
Isaac Albéniz is one of Spain’s most recognized composers of the end of the 19th Century and the early 20th. If his music reflected far more influences than those of his native Catalonia, it can be explained in large part by the fact that he ran away from home at the age of 13 and toured Costa Rica, the United States, England, Germany, Belgium and Hungary. Of course by the time he got to Belgium he was no longer a runaway teenager, and in fact he was able to get a bursary from no less a personality than the King of Spain to study at the Brus- sels Conservatory. He later studied with Vincent d’Indy, Paul Dukas, and…oh yes, Franz Liszt. You would expect his music to be thoroughly cosmopolitan.
