Tavener: Requiem - downloads available from EMI Classics

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Elin Manahan Thomas, Andrew Kennedy, Josephine Knight, Ruth Palmer Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra & Chorus / Vasily Petrenko

CD and downloads available June 2 from EMI Classics
“The work pivots around a lone cello around which swirl the waves of choral harmony, the rolling percussion, the glinting brass, and the clear, pure tone of soprano Elin Manahan Thomas. It’s accompanied here by Eternal Memory and Mahashãkti, similarly possessed of comforting awe.” – Independent ( U.K. )

EMI Classics is proud to release the world-premiere recording of Sir John Tavener’s new Requiem. In this transporting, multi-layered work, the beloved composer incorporates numerous religious, philosophical, and musical traditions, uniting them into a single expression of death as transcendence and release from physical existence.

"The truest meaning of this Requiem is contained in the following words: ‘Our glory lies where we cease to exist.’ That is, where one’s ‘false-self’ is extinguished, and our true ‘SELF’ shines forth. Then, we have in a way become GOD… But this realization is beyond almost all human beings, which is why ‘RELIGION’ exists, and why the perennial truth of all of the great religious traditions centers on this primordial truth – the absolute freedom that results from this can only belong to the being, that liberated from the conditions of manifested existence, has become absolutely ‘one’ with its principal and its origin. The seventh movement of Requiem is a musical expression of this, as the whole piece is a journey towards it.” - Sir John Tavener
“Recorded by the same team that premiered the piece at Liverpool’s Metropolitan Cathedral last year – the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko – the seven-movement Requiem may be the ultimate realization of John Tavener’s multi-faith attitudes, blending textual fragments from Islamic, Hindu, and Christian sources, and incorporating Tibetan temple bells and Native American drums alongside the orchestra.” - Andy Gill, Independent (London)

The new recording is rounded out with two beautiful pieces for the talented solo string players, Ruth Palmer and Josephine Knight.

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