Requiem (Weinberg)

Mieczyslaw Weinberg composed his Requiem Op. 96 between 1965 and 1967. Like other Soviet Requiems such as Dmitri Kabalevsky's it does not set to music the Roman Rite liturgy, but secular poems by Mikhail Dudin, Munetoshi Fukugawa, Federico García Lorca, Dmitri Kedrin and Sara Teasdale. The use of anti-war texts links this work to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which Weinberg knew well.

It consists of the following movements:

1. Bread and Iron (1. Хлеб и железо Dmitri Kedrin^[1])
2. And Then... (2. И затем … Federico García Lorca^[2][3]
3. There will Come Soft Rains (3. Будет ласковый дождь Sara Teasdale)
4. Hiroshima Five-Line Stanzas (4. Хиросимское пятистишие Munetoshi Fukugawa; revision of Weinberg's cantata op. 92 Hiroshima)^[4]
5. People Walked... (5. Люди шли Federico García Lorca)
6. Sow the Seed (6. Посейте семя Mikhail Dudin)

It wasn't performed in the composer's lifetime, the premiere only taking place on November 21, 2009 in Liverpool by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, with Thomas Sanderling conducting the ensemble. ^[5]

Lyrics

The score is headed by an excerpt of a short poem by Alexander Tvardovsky:

"The gun-barrels are still warm,

And the sand has not yet absorbed the blood.

But peace has come. Breathe people,

For the threshold of war has been crossed..."

References

1. Хлеб и железо (1942)
2. And After That
3. Пустыня Прорытые временем Лабиринты — Исчезли. Пустыня — Осталась. Несмолчное сердце — Источник желаний — Иссякло. Пустыня — Осталась. Закатное марево И поцелуи Пропали. Пустыня — Осталась. Умолкло, заглохло, Остыло, иссякло, Исчезло. Пустыня — Осталась.)
4. From the translated edition: Мунэтоси, Фукагаза. Сопротивление. — Хиросима
5. Daily Telegraph review]

• Program notes by David Fanning for the premiere.