News

Phillip Kloeckner tells us in his very useful booklet notes that Arthur Gottschalk’s Requiem for the Living uses the traditional Latin text from the Mass of the Dead (Missa pro defunctis) combined with a wide variety of texts and, indeed, musical styles in order to illustrate the variety and texture of our common diversity. It is intended to be a commentary on life whilst re-evaluating the many facets of death and the afterlife.

The first movement includes the traditional Hebrew prayer for the dead (Yizkor), the second movement a verse from the Qur’an, the third the wisdom of Buddha, the fourth Duke Ellington’s conviction about the nature of the Divine, the fifth words by George Eliot, the sixth Muhammad’s prayer for light and the seventh movement two American folk idiom, Bluegrass Gospel and Blues Spiritual.

In eight movements it opens with Introit – Yizkor – Kyrie that leaps up in a dramatic Requiem aeternam before an impassioned plea from tenor, Alberto Mizrahi ‘God, remember the souls of our beloved…’ moving around in the manner of a Jewish cantor before the choir bring back the Requiem. The music becomes quieter as the Kyrie arrives with some finely overlaid choral voices, Gottschalk showing a very light touch with the orchestra.