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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 eminently
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
ppp volume 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 21 st 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 Britten,
John Rutter…and Andrew Lloyd
Webber, whose Pie Jesu haunts the firsttime
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
19 th Century and the early 20 th . 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 Brussels
Conservatory. He later studied with
Vincent d’Indy, Paul Dukas, and…oh
yes, Franz Liszt. You would expect his
music to be thoroughly cosmopolitan.