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Music Text

Holy Anthems combined with poetry by Russian authors: Anna Akhmatova, Alexander Blok, Joseph Brodsky, Gavriil Derzhavin, Zinaida Hippius, Georgi Ivanov, Mikhail Lermontov, Ossip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, Alexander Pushkin, Irina Ratushinskaya, Viktor Sosnora (R)

Scoring

3(=picc,afl).3(=corA).3(=bcl).3(=dbn)-4.3.3(btrbn).1-timp-perc:tgl/flex/crystal glasses/crot/BD/cyms/tam-t/gong/t.bells/glsp/2vib/b.marimba)-hp-pft-cel-org(ad lib.)-str CD (ringing of bells)

Abbreviations (PDF)

Publisher

Sikorski

Territory
This work is available from Boosey & Hawkes / Sikorski for the world.

Availability

World Premiere
9/14/2007
Glocke, Bremen
Bremer Philharmoniker / Tonu Kaljuste
Programme Note

‘Anyone who experiences Lera Auerbach sees a total work of art on two legs with a tremendously high demand on itself,‘ said Thomas Albert, the director of the Bremen Music Festival, at which Lera Auerbach's “Russian Requiem” was premiered on 14 September 2007 with the Estonian Boys’ Choir, the Latvian State Choir, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra and soloists. ‘She confronts society with this claim, whether it wants to or not. Completely uncompromising.’
Her ‘Russian Requiem’ for boy soprano, mezzo-soprano, bass, boys' choir, mixed choir and large orchestra is dedicated to all victims of oppression, explains Auerbach. The texts she has set to music include quotes from the Russian Orthodox liturgy and poems by Pushkin, Lermontov, Mandelstam, Blok, Brodsky and Akhmatova.
Auerbach: „... all sharing the common threat of repression under the intolerant regimes during different times and centuries throughout Russian history. For Russia its poets have been its conscience and the voice of truth. For history not to repeat itself, as in a nightmarish spiral of variations on the theme of continued injustice and oppression in its different forms, we must engrave its memory in the souls of the living. Our memories define who we truly are.’

Subjects
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