Yizkor Requiem

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Thomas Beveridge is a composer and choral director based in Washington, D.C.--one of the most chorus-friendly cities in the country--who obviously draws from a rich fund of practical experience in performance to shape this remarkable composition. A former student of Randall Thompson and Walter Piston at Harvard, Beveridge has managed to create a work with staying power. The Yizkor Requiem is relatively easy to perform (unlike many new compositions, there have been frequent hearings since its 1994 premiere), yet it doesn't pander, offering sufficient challenges and musical substance to make it attractive for performers and listeners alike. Beveridge was inspired to write the Requiem as a way to cope with the loss of his parents; the subtitle, "A Quest for Spiritual Roots," in particular is a tribute to his musician-scholar father, who embarked on a lifelong ecumenical study of the relation between music and spirituality.

The counterpoint of its title summarizes the essence of the work, which explores parallels between Jewish (Yizkor is Hebrew for "may He remember") and Christian liturgies, interweaving texts from the Latin Requiem Mass with passages from the Jewish memorial service. Most important, the score itself achieves its own synthesis through a vibrant, lyrical abundance, along with recurring motifs of octaves and fifths, which inform a kind of internal cosmology structuring the work's 10 sections. Dark, muted, yearningly chromatic string passages, Bachian choral harmonies, and infectiously breezy ostinato rhythms give variety. The brass sound with piercing clarity, yet--with a nod to Fauré's beloved Requiem--the harsh judgment of the Dies Irae is absent, in favor of an ultimately consoling vision. The last movement brings together the Lord's Prayer with the Mourner's Kaddish, concluding a vision that celebrates the work of memory as firmly rooted in the here and now rather than an ethereal abstraction. This premiere recording, featuring an excellent lineup of soloists, was taken from a live performance with Norman Scribner and the Choral Arts Society of Washington--one of the city's powerhouse choral institutions--given at the Kennedy Center in 1996. The Yizkor Requiem makes an admirable addition to Naxos's American Classics series. --Thomas May

Yizkor Requiem, Music, Thomas Beveridge, Norman Scribner, Joseph Holt, Christine Goerke, Alberto Mizrahi, Chamber Music & Recitals, Choral, Choral Music, Classical, Classical Composers, Classical Music

Thomas Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem
Average customer rating:

Great Work/Good Recording

Thomas Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem

Manufacturer: Milken Archive
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B000B6N6CM
Release Date: 2005-10-18

Tracks:

I. Reader's Kaddish
II. Requiem Aeternam
III. Psalm 23
IV. Remember!
V. Offertory
VI. Sanctification
VII. El Male Rahamim
VIII. Lux Aeterna
IX. Justorum Animae
X. Mourners' Kaddish And Lord's Prayer

Customer Reviews:

Great Work/Good Recording.......2007-01-11

This CD was a great guide as our choir was rehearsing this Requiem. The work itself is awe-inspiring and captures some wonderful feeling. The only disbenefit of this recording is that it is a little quiet and perhaps balanced too much toward the orchestra; perhaps this reflects my choral bias.

Average customer rating:

Almost Brilliant
Are we all listening to the same recording?
A Sacred Bridge of Music
Yizkor Requiem a moving musical and religious experience!

Yizkor Requiem

Manufacturer: Naxos American
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

4-for-3 Classical | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music

4-for-3 All Music | 4-for-3 Music | Stores | Music
ASIN: B000051Y05
Release Date: 2000-11-14

Tracks:

Reader's Kaddish
Requiem Aeternam
Psalm 23
Remember!
Hostias
Sanctification
El Malei Rachamim
Lux Aeterna
Justorum Animae
Mourner's Kaddish And Lord's Prayer

Amazon.com

Thomas Beveridge is a composer and choral director based in Washington, D.C.--one of the most chorus-friendly cities in the country--who obviously draws from a rich fund of practical experience in performance to shape this remarkable composition. A former student of Randall Thompson and Walter Piston at Harvard, Beveridge has managed to create a work with staying power. The Yizkor Requiem is relatively easy to perform (unlike many new compositions, there have been frequent hearings since its 1994 premiere), yet it doesn't pander, offering sufficient challenges and musical substance to make it attractive for performers and listeners alike. Beveridge was inspired to write the Requiem as a way to cope with the loss of his parents; the subtitle, "A Quest for Spiritual Roots," in particular is a tribute to his musician-scholar father, who embarked on a lifelong ecumenical study of the relation between music and spirituality.

The counterpoint of its title summarizes the essence of the work, which explores parallels between Jewish (Yizkor is Hebrew for "may He remember") and Christian liturgies, interweaving texts from the Latin Requiem Mass with passages from the Jewish memorial service. Most important, the score itself achieves its own synthesis through a vibrant, lyrical abundance, along with recurring motifs of octaves and fifths, which inform a kind of internal cosmology structuring the work's 10 sections. Dark, muted, yearningly chromatic string passages, Bachian choral harmonies, and infectiously breezy ostinato rhythms give variety. The brass sound with piercing clarity, yet--with a nod to Fauré's beloved Requiem--the harsh judgment of the Dies Irae is absent, in favor of an ultimately consoling vision. The last movement brings together the Lord's Prayer with the Mourner's Kaddish, concluding a vision that celebrates the work of memory as firmly rooted in the here and now rather than an ethereal abstraction. This premiere recording, featuring an excellent lineup of soloists, was taken from a live performance with Norman Scribner and the Choral Arts Society of Washington--one of the city's powerhouse choral institutions--given at the Kennedy Center in 1996. The Yizkor Requiem makes an admirable addition to Naxos's American Classics series. --Thomas May

Customer Reviews:

Almost Brilliant.......2003-01-17

This is a very impressive musical/ecumenical effort, combining western choral style with Hebraic incantation, utilizing Hebrew, Latin and English texts seemlessly, creating an intercultural web of spiritual associations and insights. The performance, generally, is excellent, as is the live recording (which is less noisy than many studio recordings). Alberto Mizrahi's singing is nothing less than ecstatic. The emotional effect is profoundly moving. So why is it almost brilliant? Beveridge seems to have succumbed to the Spielberg Insecurity Principle, which causes the artist to believe his work does not fully commuincate what it in fact communicates, and that it needs ONE MORE THING (which doesn't really fit) to clear it up. In the case of the present work, the ONE THING is a spoken prayer inserted into the fading sequence of 'Amens' which close the work. It's a good prayer, and if I were at an actual funeral, in a house of worship, presided over by a minister, I would appreciate this prayer. In the context of this massive musical work, however, it is unnecessary, redundant, intrusive, and distracting. It is liturgy, not music or art. It says less than the work as a whole, and detracts from the peace of the approaching silence. It's like having someone read a poem as Mahler's 9th fades out. If I get a CD burner, I will definitely see if I can edit it out!

Are we all listening to the same recording?.......2001-03-30

Are the rest of you reviewing the same CD that I listened to? I appreciate the effort made by the composer in this work. But after listening I was disappointed to here a composition that seemed more aimed at fitting a marketable niche than creating a the kind of addition to the recorded repertoire that the other reviewers claim. As for the chorus - I appreciate the other reviewer's enthusiasm (perhaps he/she regularly hears this chorus live in DC?) but based on this recording - its just not in the league of America's more famous symphonic chouruses.

A Sacred Bridge of Music.......2001-03-19

Composer Thomas Beveridge has created a choral masterwork that draws from the scriptural and liturgical traditions of the world's two great monotheistic religions to create a powerful, stirring and eminently listenable musical bridge between the Jewish Yiskor service for the dead and the Catholic requiem mass. As performed by The Choral Arts Society of Washington--one of the nation's greatest and most accomplished symphonic choruses--under the baton of founding music director Norman Scribner, the range of musical color goes from the thunderously powerful to the hushed tones of a single angelic voice. This music is inspired, brilliantly innovative and may well become one of the great choral compositions of the late twentieth century, masterfully performed by a first-tier chorus.

Yizkor Requiem a moving musical and religious experience!.......2000-12-15

Thomas Beveridge has created a masterpiece, not only musically but theologically as well. His blending of the traditional Christian requiem mass and the Jewish Yizkor service of remembrance is a major contribution to ecumenism. This is a deeply moving, personal exploration of life and death, written as a tribute to the composer's parents. Powerful musically, the piece is magnificently performed by the Washington Choral Arts Society and members of the National Symphony Orchestra in a live performance at Kennedy Center. The recording is stunning in its power. The soloists, especially Alberto Mizrahi (often called "The Jewish Pavarotti") are superb. This recording is the first of this ground-breaking American work, which is destined to become a standard part of the choral repertoire.

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