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Kastalsky: Requiem for Fallen Brothers / Slatkin, Orchestra of St. Luke's
Naxos

Kastalsky: Requiem for Fallen Brothers / Slatkin, Orchestra of St. Luke's

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Details

Composer
KASTALSKY, ALEXANDER
Artist
Dennis, Beutel, Cathedral Choral Society, Kansas City Cho
Format
CD
Label
Naxos
Released
Aug 28, 2020
Catalog #
8574245
UPC
747313424573

About

A 2020 GRAMMY nominee for Best Choral Performance!

Alexander Kastalsky was a student of Tchaikovsky and a mentor to Rachmaninov, becoming director of the Moscow Synodal School until the Bolshevik regime banned all sacred music, including the extraordinary Requiem for Fallen Brothers which consequently lay forgotten for over a century. The Requiem is a rich and varied mosaic that honors those who perished in the First World War, poignantly combining Orthodox and Gregorian chant with hymns from the allied nations, even including Rock of Ages. This unprecedented and peerless monument to those who made the ultimate sacrifice was acclaimed on its 1917 premiere as a ‘uniquely Russian requiem that… gave musical voice to the tears of many nations.’ This is a world premiere recording.

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REVIEW:

One of Russia’s foremost composers of Orthodox church music, Alexander Kastalsky (1856-1926) is remembered for assisting Rachmaninov with his All-Night Vigil. During World War I, Kastalsky composed his Requiem for Fallen Brothers in honour of Russia and her allies: using a full orchestra, and mingling texts and melodies from the Orthodox, Anglican and Catholic Churches, Kastalsky also included textless tributes to the Indian and Japanese forces. Most of the music is clearly steeped in the Orthodox tradition, infused with memories of Mozart’s Requiem, but includes disquieting elements such as the Musorgsky-like funeral bell chord which makes ominous reappearances, like the bell in Britten’s War Requiem. After its 1917 premiere, Kastalsky added a further three movements including one honouring Russia’s new ally, America. The October Revolution precluded their performance, and the work was not heard again until 1977 when Yevgeny Svetlanov conducted the earlier 1917 version, its liturgical texts inevitably replaced with Soviet-style sentiments: this was recorded, but is currently only available as part of an expensive 11-disc Melodiya set.

Leonard Slatkin and his first-rate team of musicians now present the first complete recording. The ‘new’ post-1917 movements include a ‘Beati mortui’ sparkling with sleigh bells and piano figuration; a sombre bass solo ‘Kakaya sladost’, which for a moment enters a hellish region with shadowed smears and slitherings from the orchestra; and the American hymn ‘Rock of Ages’ bizarrely yet touchingly combined with Chopin’s Funeral March. Slatkin, who admits a deep belief in this work, draws a touching performance.

- Daniel Jaffé, Choral & Song

REVIEW:

Alexander Dmitrievich Kastalsky was born in Moscow on 16 November 1856 and died there on 17 December 1926. A student of Taneyev and Tchaikovsky at the Moscow Conservatory, his works stood to one side from the secular musical world. Rachmaninov saw Kastalsky as his teacher and was influenced by the older man whose presence can be sensed in the Vespers and in the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom—also recorded by Charles Bruffy and his Kansas choir. Kastalsky became a leading light in a nineteenth century renaissance of the liturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church. With Smolensky and Grechaninov, Kastalsky was part of fresh passion for Russian devotional music. Tragically for Kastalsky, this was to collide with the Bolshevik ban on sacred music. The extraordinary imaginative strengths of the choral-orchestral Requiem for Fallen Brothers were disregarded. Even so it is reported that the Kastalsky Requiem travelled far and wide. It was, for example, performed in Birmingham by that city’s Festival Choir on 22 November 1917 conducted by Henry Wood, a fervent Russophile.

The towering Requiem lay in oblivion for more than a century despite its fresh and tragic inspiration: it recalled those who perished in the First World War. The score is affluent in ideas, both vocal and orchestral. Across seventeen segments (here separately accessible) the work accommodates a range of well-recognised spiritual references. Without falling into the trap of a variegated collage it finds a place for Orthodox and Gregorian chant and mixes in material from the allied nations. In tr. 14 Kastalsky weaves Chopin’s ‘funeral march’ and the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’ with the same mastery we find in Bridge’s Sir Roger de Coverley and Holst’s Fantasia on The Dargason. The more one experiences this major work, whether through this fine recording under Leonard Slatkin or in the hands of Evgeny Svetlanov, the more one places it alongside other known Great War humanist monuments like Delius’s Requiem and John Foulds’ World Requiem. To this group, can be added John Ireland’s These Things Shall Be and perhaps also a work quite unknown, Julius Harrison’s Great War tribute Requiem of Archangels. Kastalsky’s commitment towards church music spread to a work kindred to the Requiem but this time for unaccompanied choir. It was a short version; only 40 minutes as against the 64 minutes of the present Requiem. This a cappella work came under the title Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes.

The Requiem strides forward with slight pauses between sections. In terms of sweep and incident it coheres well. Proceedings begin with seraphic choir and tolling bells, all suggestive of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. The Kyrie (2) continues the seraphic treatment but is underpinned with tenderly stabbing strings. The whole rises to a searching intensity that recalls Rachmaninov’s The Bells. As this section closes Kastalsky refers obliquely back to the clangour of the first movement. The dark griping of the brass in the Rex tremendae (4) paves the way for a soprano solo in Ingemisco (4) and for Beethovenian protest and struggle in the Confutatis. Here Kastalsky deploys words from Pushkin’s poem John of Damascus; a text that also drew Taneyev. The Lacrymosa (6) has the two soloists’ voices mingling amid a choral haze. Mixed in we hear tendrils of the Dies Irae. In Domine Jesu (7) the scent of incense is strong against the treble of silvery bells. Beati mortui makes use of the sound of sleigh bells and, not for the first time, fleetingly suggests The Bells—the latter a work dating from four years before Kastalsky started work on the Requiem. The Hostias (9) blends the harp with the rich tone of the choir in a heaven-invoking carol. In the first of two Interludia (10), Japanese music is limned in to represent participation of the Japanese army in the conflict. Trumpet fanfares impel and crown the grand statement that is the Sanctus (11). The coaxing and soothing ways of the Agnus Dei (12) usher in What Sweetness in This World (13) with its commanding piano part and bass-baritone darkness. Its fruity solo trumpet makes you think of Holst’s Dirge for Two Veterans. The Dies Irae returns in mists for the Kyrie eleison (15)—an exercise in slow-stepping serenity. There’s unhurried atmospheric ululation in the second Interludium: Hymn to Indra, calling to mind, if only in choice of subject, Holst’s Sanskrit works. The Requiem ends with the bells: part hugely imposing and celebratory and part seeming to reach out towards apotheosis from the bleak fog of chaos. The superb echoing resonance of the church acoustic is very present as the finale rings out.

This fully-fleshed out Requiem has a tremendously dignified tread, noble grief and imperious ways. Naxos have done well by Kastalsky. This treatment extends to a twenty-page booklet with all the sung text. The layout has the Italian, Latin, Greek and Russian words with English translation in parallel throughout.

– MusicWeb International (Rob Barnett)

Tracklist 17 tracks

  1. 1 Requiem aeternam 05:44
    Track
    1
    Title
    Requiem aeternam
    Duration
    05:44
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Joseph Charles Beutel
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  2. 2 Kyrie eleison 05:49
    Track
    2
    Title
    Kyrie eleison
    Duration
    05:49
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  3. 3 Rex tremendae 04:53
    Track
    3
    Title
    Rex tremendae
    Duration
    04:53
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Joseph Charles Beutel
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  4. 4 Ingemisco: Guilty, Now I Pour my Moaning 03:11
    Track
    4
    Title
    Ingemisco: Guilty, Now I Pour my Moaning
    Duration
    03:11
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Anna Dennis
    Ensemble
    Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  5. 5 Confutatis: Among the Piles of Smouldering Bones 02:14
    Track
    5
    Title
    Confutatis: Among the Piles of Smouldering Bones
    Duration
    02:14
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  6. 6 Lacrymosa 04:19
    Track
    6
    Title
    Lacrymosa
    Duration
    04:19
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Anna Dennis, Joseph Charles Beutel
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  7. 7 Domine Jesu - Now the Laborer's Task is O'er 02:51
    Track
    7
    Title
    Domine Jesu - Now the Laborer's Task is O'er
    Duration
    02:51
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Joseph Charles Beutel
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  8. 8 Beati mortui 01:43
    Track
    8
    Title
    Beati mortui
    Duration
    01:43
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Anna Dennis
    Ensemble
    Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  9. 9 Hostias 03:29
    Track
    9
    Title
    Hostias
    Duration
    03:29
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  10. 10 Interludium 01:43
    Track
    10
    Title
    Interludium
    Duration
    01:43
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  11. 11 Sanctus: Holy, Holy, Holy… Blessed is He 03:49
    Track
    11
    Title
    Sanctus: Holy, Holy, Holy… Blessed is He
    Duration
    03:49
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  12. 12 Agnus Dei 02:36
    Track
    12
    Title
    Agnus Dei
    Duration
    02:36
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  13. 13 What Sweetness in This World is Not Mixed with Grief? 03:17
    Track
    13
    Title
    What Sweetness in This World is Not Mixed with Grief?
    Duration
    03:17
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Performer
    Joseph Charles Beutel
    Ensemble
    Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  14. 14 Rock of Ages 04:35
    Track
    14
    Title
    Rock of Ages
    Duration
    04:35
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  15. 15 Kyrie eleison - Absolve, Domine 05:51
    Track
    15
    Title
    Kyrie eleison - Absolve, Domine
    Duration
    05:51
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  16. 16 Interludium: Hymn to Indra 01:51
    Track
    16
    Title
    Interludium: Hymn to Indra
    Duration
    01:51
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin
  17. 17 Requiem aeternam - Memory Eternal 05:20
    Track
    17
    Title
    Requiem aeternam - Memory Eternal
    Duration
    05:20
    Composer
    Alexander Kastalsky
    Ensemble
    Cathedral Choral Society, The Clarion Choir, Saint Tikhon Choir, Kansas City Chorale, Orchestra of St. Luke's
    Conductor
    Leonard Slatkin