Dip Your Ears, No. 112 (Weinberg's Requiem)

M.Weinberg, Requiem op.96, V.Fedoseyev / VSO, Prague Philharmonic Chorus, Vienna Boys' Choir et al. NEOS SACD 11127

Weinberg Edition No.3:

Mieczysław Weinberg, Requiem, "And then..." [F.G.Lorca] (excerpt), Fedoseyev et al., NEOS

Weinberg’s 1967 Requiem, an empathetic response to Britten’s War Requiem, is a secular death mass in that line of Berlioz-Verdi-Britten-Shostakovich (13^th Symphony). Weinberg assimilates his own “Hiroshima Cantata” in a greater pan-national anti-war statement, but the result makes obvious that music, not politics, were Weinberg’s primary concern. The polystylistic work was never performed during Weinberg’s lifetime and got its premiere only in 2009, under Thomas Sanderling in Liverpool. The mood is Weinberg at his most typical: appropriately grim and dark, with airs of shrugged shoulders and tortured resignation… eased by morbid calm. It’s an easy work to be in awe of, but not always an easy work to immediately like.

Mieczysław Weinberg, Requiem, "People walked..." [F.G.Lorca] (excerpt), Fedoseyev et al., NEOS

All the NEOS Weinberg releases are on SACD. Either expensive or unavailable on ArkivMusic and Amazon.com, they are most easily and inexpensively gotten via Amazon.co.uk