Customer Reviews

Beveridge: Yizkor Requiem

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 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.

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.

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.