Thomas Beveridge is a composer and choral director based in Washington, D.C.--one of the most chorus-friendly cities in the country--who obviously draws from a rich fund of practical experience in performance to shape this remarkable composition. A former student of Randall Thompson and Walter Piston at Harvard, Beveridge has managed to create a work with staying power. The Yizkor Requiem is relatively easy to perform (unlike many new compositions, there have been frequent hearings since its 1994 premiere), yet it doesn't pander, offering sufficient challenges and musical substance to make it attractive for performers and listeners alike. Beveridge was inspired to write the Requiem as a way to cope with the loss of his parents; the subtitle, "A Quest for Spiritual Roots," in particular is a tribute to his musician-scholar father, who embarked on a lifelong ecumenical study of the relation between music and spirituality. The counterpoint of its title summarizes the essence of the work, which explores parallels between Jewish (Yizkor is Hebrew for "may He remember") and Christian liturgies, interweaving texts from the Latin Requiem Mass with passages from the Jewish memorial service. Most important, the score itself achieves its own synthesis through a vibrant, lyrical abundance, along with recurring motifs of octaves and fifths, which inform a kind of internal cosmology structuring the work's 10 sections. Dark, muted, yearningly chromatic string passages, Bachian choral harmonies, and infectiously breezy ostinato rhythms give variety. The brass sound with piercing clarity, yet--with a nod to Fauré's beloved Requiem--the harsh judgment of the Dies Irae is absent, in favor of an ultimately consoling vision. The last movement brings together the Lord's Prayer with the Mourner's Kaddish, concluding a vision that celebrates the work of memory as firmly rooted in the here and now rather than an ethereal abstraction. This premiere recording, featuring an excellent lineup of soloists, was taken from a live performance with Norman Scribner and the Choral Arts Society of Washington--one of the city's powerhouse choral institutions--given at the Kennedy Center in 1996. The Yizkor Requiem makes an admirable addition to Naxos's American Classics series. --Thomas May
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