Da Vinci Requiem

ISBN-13: 9780193519022 / Angielski

Cecilia McDowall

Opis

for soprano and baritone soloists, SATB chorus, and orchestra This significant seven-movement work from Cecilia McDowall presents an imaginative pairing of extracts from The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci with texts from the Latin Missa pro defunctis. Da Vinci's reflective and penetrating insights into the nature of mortality and all that it encompasses cast new light on the familiar Requiem texts, and McDowall employs her orchestral forces to create a rich, atmospheric backdrop to the profound narrative presented by the chorus and soprano and baritone soloists. Dark, sonorous writing precedes an energetic 'Sanctus', and the closing bars of the luminous 'Lux aeterna' create a powerful allusion to da Vinci's concept of 'The Perspective of Disappearance'.

Recenzje

There was nothing trite, or lacking in invention, in this new work. The musical and emotional contrasts were tangible . . . The Sanctus and Benedictus, which McDowall sees as the centrepiece or kernel of the work, unleashes, perhaps not surprisingly, ebullience and vitality. The dancing, high-spirited treatment, dotted with a gentle syncopation, feels as fresh as Copland or Bernstein. The choir joins a vivid xylophone in cascading downwards patterns. The Sanctus comes vividly alive (with an effective attacca or direct link to the Benedictus) right to its thrillingy abrupt end . . . As it was, this Requiem proved a tribute not just to Leonardo, but to the composer, and the flair and imagination of the choir that commissioned it, and poured life into it so admirably and intelligently.

O autorze

Cecilia McDowall has been described by the International Record Review as having a 'communicative gift that is very rare in modern music. An award-winning composer, McDowall is often inspired by extra-musical influences, and her choral writing combines rhythmic vitality with expressive lyricism. Her music has been commissioned, performed, and recorded by leading choirs, among them the BBC Singers, The Sixteen, and Oxford and Cambridge choirs and is regularly programmed at prestigious festivals in Britain and abroad. In 2017 McDowall was selected for an Honorary Fellow award by the Royal School of Church Music.