Mieczysław Weinberg Mieczysław Weinberg (8 December 1919 – 26 February 1996) was a Polish-born Soviet composer and pianist. Names Much confusion has been caused by different renditions of the composer's names. In official Polish documents made before he mov ...

composed his Requiem, Op. 96, between 1965 and 1967. Like other Soviet Requiem compositions such as Dmitri Kabalevsky's, it does not set to music the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite ( la, Ritus Romanus) is the primary liturgical rite of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. It developed in the Latin language in the city of Rome and, while dist ...

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. ''Liturgy'' can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and partic ...

, but secular poems by

Mikhail Dudin Mikhail Aleksandrovich Dudin (russian: Михаил Александрович Дудин; – 31 December 1993) was a Soviet poet.Mikhail Aleksandrovich Dudin (November 7 0 1916, Klevnevo village, Nerekhtsky district, Kostroma province, Russia ...

, Munetoshi Fukugawa, Federico García Lorca,

Dmitri Kedrin Dmitri Borisovich Kedrin (russian: Дми́трий Бори́сович Ке́дрин; February 17, 1907 – September 18, 1945) was a Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transco ...

and Sara Teasdale. The use of anti-war texts links this work to Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, which Weinberg knew well. It consists of the following movements: # ''Bread and Iron'' (1. Хлеб и железо

) # ''And Then...'' (2. И затем … Federico García Lorca # ''There will Come Soft Rains'' (3. Будет ласковый дождь Sara Teasdale) # ''Hiroshima Five-Line Stanzas'' (4. Хиросимское пятистишие Munetoshi Fukugawa; revision of Weinberg's cantata op. 92

Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui h ...

) # ''People Walked...'' (5. Люди шли Federico García Lorca) # ''Sow the Seed'' (6. Посейте семя

) It was not performed in the composer's lifetime, the premiere only taking place on 21 November 2009 in Liverpool by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, with

Thomas Sanderling Thomas Sanderling (; born October 2, 1942) is a German conductor. His father was the conductor Kurt Sanderling. His half-brothers are the conductors Stefan Sanderling and Michael Sanderling. Sanderling was born in Novosibirsk, and began his e ...

conducting. The Requiem was published by Peermusic's Hamburg branch in 2007.Se
Peermusic
and . Their description page (and the NUKAT description) note that the work requires soprano, children's chorus, mixed chorus, and full orchestra.

Lyrics

The score is headed by an excerpt of a short poem by

Aleksandr Tvardovsky Aleksandr Trifonovich Tvardovsky ( rus, links=no, Александр Трифонович Твардовский, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ˈtrʲifənəvʲɪtɕ tvɐrˈdofskʲɪj; – 18 December 1971) was a Soviet poet and writer and chief editor of ' ...

: : The gun-barrels are still warm, : And the sand has not yet absorbed the blood. : But peace has come. Breathe people, : For the threshold of war has been crossed...

References

Program notes by David Fanning (musicologist), David Fanning for the premiere. Compositions by Mieczysław Weinberg Weinberg 1967 compositions {{classical-composition-stub