Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem

Thomas Beveridge (Composer), Norman Scribner (Conductor), Joseph Holt (Performer), Christine Goerke (Performer), Alberto Mizrahi (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Joseph Holt, Christine Goerke, Alberto Mizrahi
• Conductor: Norman Scribner
• Composer: Thomas Beveridge
• Audio CD (November 14, 2000)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Naxos American
• ASIN: B000051Y05
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #250,955 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

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

Product Description

(8559074)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Almost Brilliant, January 16, 2003

By 

Timothy Dougal (Madison, Wi United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem (Audio CD)

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!

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Are we all listening to the same recording?, March 30, 2001

By 

Fred Smithson (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem (Audio CD)

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.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yizkor Requiem a moving musical and religious experience!, December 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem (Audio CD)

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.