Once again, I find myself in the awkward position of admitting that the subject of my review is actually a mentor, former composition teacher, and friend, as was the case when I reviewed Richard Lavenda’s Chiraoscuro. So I want to put my bias up front. I hope that this does not dissuade anybody from taking this seriously because….
…well, because Art Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living is just an amazing, amazing work.
It is reminiscent of that magnificent work by Gottschalk’s own composition teacher (and, I suppose, my grandteacher) William Bolcom, Songs of Innocence and Experience, in that both works are monumental, massive post-modern deployments of large forces in the service of a postmodernist multi-aesthetic experience.
