Requiem [Soundtrack]

For me, familiarity seems to breed disinterest.

However, I just can't say the same for this Requiem. Is it derivitive? Sure. Have other composers mentioned here written "better" Requiems? I think that would be a fair comment.

But does Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem move me? Yeah. It really does. And I can come back to it, it seems, without the effect having been diminished.

Could this actually be the piece ALW has always been meant to write? I have absolutely no idea.

I just like it.

One quibble: Placido Domingo was too far along in his career here to have sung the music as I suspect Webber had in mind. I realize star power sells CDs, but, for all his talent and musicality, the great Domingo, at this point, was simply unable to sing pianissimo above the staff.

And while there can be no doubt Webber wrote the soprano part for Sarah Brightman, it would be nice sometime to hear a soprano sing this music with a tad more "oomph" to her voice.

But, still, quite an amazing effort.

Well done!

Having said that, this music is unlike anything else you will ever hear. It is grandiose, triumphant, sanguine, and full of anguish. It is one of the most luxuriously evocative pieces I have ever heard. This is the sound of a forgotten world trying to make sense of its looming oblivion. It conjures strange and desolate landscapes in my mind... Hordes of libertines crashing through a city in masks, burning themselves alive and shrieking as they throw themselves from smoking spires... A lonely stooped prophet crossing a desert in some post-apocalyptic world, blindly beseeching the terrible sun for penance... An infernal machine, once abandoned, uses a woman as a musical instrument, invades her mind, body and soul and tries to make sense of the world through her plaintive sighs and disjointed memories... Orphans rummage through the shards of what was once a grand floating-city made of crystal... A ship of fools travels the open seas ceaselessly- in their eyes the ocean is a desert... A small child with bright eyes and a rucksack meanders through these scenes, immune to the chaos, narrating the events with solemn pity, watching over the doomed souls who pass through the story.

I first heard this in a college philosophy class (thanks Dr. Haist!), and was simply awestruck. Again, I've never heard anything like it. Listen briefly to the samples and see if it has a similar effect on you (especially if you care for religious music of this kind). This is something rare.

Honestly, I'm not really fond of Broadway shows or contemporary musicals or such; As an "emotionalist", I'm more into orchestral pieces (a majority of them being classical music involving a huge flow of pathos, whether it's a huge sense of feeling triumph, or a huge defeat, such as lementing the dead, and that's the reason I love about this CD.

I've often listened to music involving death and its tragedy or solemness to reflect on all the lives taken way, the sad mournful faces of the people, the images of the dead and the blood of the slaughtered, and all the disasters which claimed by a massive toll which "shouldn't have happened" - such as war, natural disasters, and the 9/11 attack. Among my favorite requiems include Verdi's massive version, Britten's War Requiem, and this one by Webber.

Let me tell this very simply; I love the music itself and the overflowing emotions - which the blood, the pain, the tears, the anger, and the sense of reconciling of what had happened tell the story.

About the performers, Placido Domingo and Sarah Brightman were superb. They've been my favorite opera singers for a long time, because their voices and tone really flows out emotions like flood. I was so darn positive no one could have been a perfect, better pair then the duo for such a melodramatic piece. Sarah Brightman's fascinating solo on "Pie Jesu" is especially not to be missed.

The choir was as great as any mass performers should be, and the orchestra under Maestro Lorin Maazel did a fine job.

Originally, Webber dedicated the music to his father, and a boy mentioned in a newspaper articie who must either [destroy] his sister or take away his own life. I would probably listen the music to remind of the 9/11 Attack...

It's already a month before the anniversary when I would be posting.

Dona eis requiem (grant them rest), and dono nobis pacem (grant us peace).