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Product details
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Track Listings
| 1. Kyrie: Close now thine eyes |
| 2. Revelation: Factum est silentium |
| 3. Belief |
| 4. Hymn: Lead, kindly light |
| 5. Lacrymosa: Do not stand at my grave and weep |
| 6. Dies Irae: In Flanders fields |
| 7. Recordare: Drop, drop slow tears |
| 8. Revelation: Tum angelus tertius clanxit |
| 9. Agnus Dei |
| 10. In Paradisum: Lux aeterna |
| 11. Love Divine (2000) |
| 12. The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) (1994) |
| 13. Spared (2008) |
Product Description
CD Description
The writing of a Requiem is a special challenge for any composer. The great Requiems of the past by composers such as Mozart, Verdi, Fauré and Duruflé interpret the sacred Requiem text literally, and represent a prayer for the salvation of the departed soul(s). Howard Goodall s Requiem, by contrast, is intended to provide solace to the grieving. The composer said, For me, a modern Requiem is one that acknowledges the terrible, unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife. ... Musical expression can I hope provide some outlet, some reflection, some transportation, even some comfort....This was to be a Requiem for the living, a Requiem focussing on interrupted lives.
Commissioned by Mark Stephenson on behalf of London Musici to celebrate the orchestra s 20th anniversary, Eternal Light: A Requiem is a stand-alone choral work that will have its London premiere in November 2008 in an exciting collaborative version for choir, soloists, orchestra and dance. The dance, Eternal Light, commissioned by Sadler s Wells Theatre, will be performed by Rambert Dance Company, its associate orchestra London Musici and Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford. Rambert Dance Company and its artistic director, Mark Baldwin, worked closely with Howard Goodall from the conception of the project to find ways in which the themes of the Requiem might be explored further in dance.
Three other choral works by Howard Goodall are also included in this CD: his setting of Psalm 23, well known as the theme tune of the BBC s Vicar of Dibley series; Love Divine, a hymn of praise set to Charles Wesley s reassuring, open-hearted words; and, finally, Goodall s setting of Spared, Wendy Cope s poem capturing the feelings of many people following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. [The work] acts, I hope, as a fitting companion to Eternal Light: A Requiem.
Commissioned by Mark Stephenson on behalf of London Musici to celebrate the orchestra s 20th anniversary, Eternal Light: A Requiem is a stand-alone choral work that will have its London premiere in November 2008 in an exciting collaborative version for choir, soloists, orchestra and dance. The dance, Eternal Light, commissioned by Sadler s Wells Theatre, will be performed by Rambert Dance Company, its associate orchestra London Musici and Christ Church Cathedral Choir, Oxford. Rambert Dance Company and its artistic director, Mark Baldwin, worked closely with Howard Goodall from the conception of the project to find ways in which the themes of the Requiem might be explored further in dance.
Three other choral works by Howard Goodall are also included in this CD: his setting of Psalm 23, well known as the theme tune of the BBC s Vicar of Dibley series; Love Divine, a hymn of praise set to Charles Wesley s reassuring, open-hearted words; and, finally, Goodall s setting of Spared, Wendy Cope s poem capturing the feelings of many people following the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001. [The work] acts, I hope, as a fitting companion to Eternal Light: A Requiem.
About the Artist
Howard Goodall
Almost everyone knows at least one of Howard Goodall's popular TV themes for Blackadder, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf, The Catherine Tate Show, Q.I. or The Vicar of Dibley. Other television scores include The Borrowers and his BAFTA-nominated The Gathering Storm. Film scores include Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997), Richard Curtis Bernard and the Genie and Mr Bean's Holiday (2007).
He is a prodigious writer of choral music and has contributed songs to several platinum-selling CDs. In Memoriam Anne Frank was performed at the first National Holocaust Memorial concert in January 2001, O Lord God of Time and Eternity at the 2003 Service of Remembrance for the Iraq war in St Paul's Cathedral, and his settings of Psalm 23 and Love Divine are amongst the most performed of all contemporary choral works.
In the theatre his musicals have been performed throughout the world. The Hired Man, which he wrote with Melvyn Bragg in 1984, won The Ivor Novello Award for Best Musical (1985), 4 Olivier Award nominations, in Holland a John Kraaijkamp Musical Award (2001), 7 Waterford International Musical Festival awards and in 2004 the TMA Award for Best Musical. In 2007-8 the New Perspectives Theatre Company took a revival of it on a 6-month UK tour, followed by Greenwich Theatre in London and a highly-acclaimed season Off-Broadway. Girlfriends (1986) was premiered in London's West End in 1987 and in Washington DC in May 2003. Days of Hope (1990) was a co-production of Hampstead Theatre and the Oxford Stage Company, was revived at London's King's Head Theatre in 2007, Silas Marner was commissioned by the 1993 Salisbury Festival and subsequently revived by the City of Birmingham Touring Opera. The Kissing-Dance (1999) and The Dreaming (2001) were both commissioned by the National Youth Music Theatre and toured extensively after seasons at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre. A Winter's Tale was premiered at the Sage Gateshead in December 2005, Two Cities at Salisbury Playhouse in September 2006. 2009 will see the UK Tour and West End premiere of Love Story.
As well as presenting a range of BBC TV and Radio series, Howard also writes and presents his own highly-successful Channel 4 documentary series on the theory and history of music. For these six series he has been honoured by a BAFTA, an RTS Judges Prize and over a dozen other major international broadcast awards. He hosts a weekly Saturday lunchtime show on Classic FM, Howard Goodall On...
He is a tireless advocate for music education, receiving the 2007 Sir Charles Grove/Making Music Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, a British Academy of Composers & Songwriters Gold Badge for exceptional work in support of his fellow composers, Honorary Doctorates of Music from Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln, and Bolton University, the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Naomi Sargant Memorial Award for 'Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting' and in January 2007 he was appointed as England s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, leading a 4-year programme (Sing Up) to improve the provision of group singing for all primary-age children.
Howard is Classic FM's Composer-in-Residence for 2008-9.
Almost everyone knows at least one of Howard Goodall's popular TV themes for Blackadder, Mr Bean, Red Dwarf, The Catherine Tate Show, Q.I. or The Vicar of Dibley. Other television scores include The Borrowers and his BAFTA-nominated The Gathering Storm. Film scores include Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie (1997), Richard Curtis Bernard and the Genie and Mr Bean's Holiday (2007).
He is a prodigious writer of choral music and has contributed songs to several platinum-selling CDs. In Memoriam Anne Frank was performed at the first National Holocaust Memorial concert in January 2001, O Lord God of Time and Eternity at the 2003 Service of Remembrance for the Iraq war in St Paul's Cathedral, and his settings of Psalm 23 and Love Divine are amongst the most performed of all contemporary choral works.
In the theatre his musicals have been performed throughout the world. The Hired Man, which he wrote with Melvyn Bragg in 1984, won The Ivor Novello Award for Best Musical (1985), 4 Olivier Award nominations, in Holland a John Kraaijkamp Musical Award (2001), 7 Waterford International Musical Festival awards and in 2004 the TMA Award for Best Musical. In 2007-8 the New Perspectives Theatre Company took a revival of it on a 6-month UK tour, followed by Greenwich Theatre in London and a highly-acclaimed season Off-Broadway. Girlfriends (1986) was premiered in London's West End in 1987 and in Washington DC in May 2003. Days of Hope (1990) was a co-production of Hampstead Theatre and the Oxford Stage Company, was revived at London's King's Head Theatre in 2007, Silas Marner was commissioned by the 1993 Salisbury Festival and subsequently revived by the City of Birmingham Touring Opera. The Kissing-Dance (1999) and The Dreaming (2001) were both commissioned by the National Youth Music Theatre and toured extensively after seasons at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Theatre. A Winter's Tale was premiered at the Sage Gateshead in December 2005, Two Cities at Salisbury Playhouse in September 2006. 2009 will see the UK Tour and West End premiere of Love Story.
As well as presenting a range of BBC TV and Radio series, Howard also writes and presents his own highly-successful Channel 4 documentary series on the theory and history of music. For these six series he has been honoured by a BAFTA, an RTS Judges Prize and over a dozen other major international broadcast awards. He hosts a weekly Saturday lunchtime show on Classic FM, Howard Goodall On...
He is a tireless advocate for music education, receiving the 2007 Sir Charles Grove/Making Music Prize for Outstanding Contribution to British Music, a British Academy of Composers & Songwriters Gold Badge for exceptional work in support of his fellow composers, Honorary Doctorates of Music from Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln, and Bolton University, the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Naomi Sargant Memorial Award for 'Outstanding Contribution to Education in Broadcasting' and in January 2007 he was appointed as England s first ever National Ambassador for Singing, leading a 4-year programme (Sing Up) to improve the provision of group singing for all primary-age children.
Howard is Classic FM's Composer-in-Residence for 2008-9.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I heard this piece as part of a performance of the ballet by the Rambert ballet company, and was immensely moved by it. It truly lifts the listener to an existence beyond the material world. Buy it! You will never tire of listening to it.
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
With breathtaking music played by London Musici and angelic vocals from the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Goodall's "Eternal Light" is able to evoke the listeners' deepest emotions, successfully showing both the deep sadness and loss associated with death and the splendours of the afterlife.
Goodall's refreshing, original and intelligent take on the Requiem, manages to create a certain relevance to today's society without destroying the foundations of a Requiem. By combining the Latin sequence of a requiem with words to some of the finest poetry, Goodall creates a beautiful array of emotions, and makes the requiem more accessible and meaningful to the listeners.
Eternal Light is a joy to listen to over and over again. Its superbly constructed movements with harmonies that will undoubtedly stick with and move you, Goodall's requiem is a truly magnificent piece of music. Anyone who appreciates either music or poetry will see how Goodall's choice of poems compliment the Latin meaning of each movement, and emphasises the powerful, confusing range of the strongest emotions one feels after losing someone.
Beautiful, inspiring, emotional and stunning, Eternal Light must be one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard. I simply cannot do it justice in this review, nor can I recommend it highly enough.
Goodall's refreshing, original and intelligent take on the Requiem, manages to create a certain relevance to today's society without destroying the foundations of a Requiem. By combining the Latin sequence of a requiem with words to some of the finest poetry, Goodall creates a beautiful array of emotions, and makes the requiem more accessible and meaningful to the listeners.
Eternal Light is a joy to listen to over and over again. Its superbly constructed movements with harmonies that will undoubtedly stick with and move you, Goodall's requiem is a truly magnificent piece of music. Anyone who appreciates either music or poetry will see how Goodall's choice of poems compliment the Latin meaning of each movement, and emphasises the powerful, confusing range of the strongest emotions one feels after losing someone.
Beautiful, inspiring, emotional and stunning, Eternal Light must be one of the best pieces of music I've ever heard. I simply cannot do it justice in this review, nor can I recommend it highly enough.
30 of 35 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
There is much to like in this modern requiem containing a surfeit of beautiful, nice music that is peaceful, and indeed comforting, in tone. I'm sure that it will be enjoyed by many and that school and church choirs all over the country will soon be singing selections from it - and enjoying them too!
Unsurprisingly, at times the music is a little Lloyd-Weber meets the Vicar of Dibley ('Lead Kindly Light', 'Belief', 'Do not stand at my grave and weep') but it is certainly pleasant enough and occasionally the singing thrills as in the innovative 'Revelations' both mixing a medieval yet modern feel. The 'Recordare' is a beautifully poignant combination of latin text and Phineas Fletcher's early-17th century sacred verse Drop, drop, slow tears and its simply exquisitely sung by Natasha Marsh. It works extremely well and is my favourite piece in the Requiem.
The problem I have with all of this is the composer's stated aim to provide "a modern Requiem... that acknowledges the terrible, unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife." I'm not at all sure that, in the round, he's actually done this, particularly in what I can only describe as a disfunctional "Dies Irae" where the latin text is coupled with "In Flanders Fields". In my opinion this completely fails to do justice to both texts and indeed to the imagined horrors of hell or the real horrors of the modern battlefield. The "Dies Irae" is traditionally the most powerful and terrifying piece in a traditional requiem for a very good reason. It represents the pain and horror of death and judgement precisely because this is a reality in the experience of the bereaved which must be faced and endured before one can work through grief to find peace, solace and salvation.
My overall feeling after listening to "Eternal Light" several times is certainly one of peace but only because I think its dodged the main issue and gone, dare I say it, for musical rather than doctrinal platitudes. Its certainly worth buying as it contains, individually, some very nice pieces, but for a better modern requiem try Preisner's Requiem for My Friend.
I don't like the saccharine-sweet dibleyesque hymns ("Lead Kindly Light", "Love Divine" and "The Lord's My Shepherd") but school choirs will probably like them. The last two are additional 'bonus' tracks to the Requiem as is the final, amazing and extremely moving, setting of "Spared", a poem written by Wendy Cope about the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 9/11.
Unsurprisingly, at times the music is a little Lloyd-Weber meets the Vicar of Dibley ('Lead Kindly Light', 'Belief', 'Do not stand at my grave and weep') but it is certainly pleasant enough and occasionally the singing thrills as in the innovative 'Revelations' both mixing a medieval yet modern feel. The 'Recordare' is a beautifully poignant combination of latin text and Phineas Fletcher's early-17th century sacred verse Drop, drop, slow tears and its simply exquisitely sung by Natasha Marsh. It works extremely well and is my favourite piece in the Requiem.
The problem I have with all of this is the composer's stated aim to provide "a modern Requiem... that acknowledges the terrible, unbearable loss and emptiness that accompanies the death of loved ones, a loss that is not easily ameliorated with platitudes about the joy awaiting us in the afterlife." I'm not at all sure that, in the round, he's actually done this, particularly in what I can only describe as a disfunctional "Dies Irae" where the latin text is coupled with "In Flanders Fields". In my opinion this completely fails to do justice to both texts and indeed to the imagined horrors of hell or the real horrors of the modern battlefield. The "Dies Irae" is traditionally the most powerful and terrifying piece in a traditional requiem for a very good reason. It represents the pain and horror of death and judgement precisely because this is a reality in the experience of the bereaved which must be faced and endured before one can work through grief to find peace, solace and salvation.
My overall feeling after listening to "Eternal Light" several times is certainly one of peace but only because I think its dodged the main issue and gone, dare I say it, for musical rather than doctrinal platitudes. Its certainly worth buying as it contains, individually, some very nice pieces, but for a better modern requiem try Preisner's Requiem for My Friend.
I don't like the saccharine-sweet dibleyesque hymns ("Lead Kindly Light", "Love Divine" and "The Lord's My Shepherd") but school choirs will probably like them. The last two are additional 'bonus' tracks to the Requiem as is the final, amazing and extremely moving, setting of "Spared", a poem written by Wendy Cope about the devastating attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on 9/11.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
wonderous!!!!!!!!!!!!
I'd heard this concert sung locally and this made me buy the CD. Such a beautiful requiem and I hear it constantly.
Published 2 months ago by Anthony Garrick
A Requiem for Today
Howard Goodall says in his notes that "this was to be a Requiem for the living, a Requiem focussing on interrupted lives .... Read more
Published 5 months ago by John Crimp
Requiem
Heard this first on Classic FM,
It is a lovely CD.I found it very peaceful my husband has died recently and it has given me a lot of comfort.
Thank you
It is a lovely CD.I found it very peaceful my husband has died recently and it has given me a lot of comfort.
Thank you
Published 15 months ago by Dawnata
Dreamy
Lovely modern work. Full of well known British soloists. The "Do not Stand at My Grave and Weep" is fantastic
Published 21 months ago by L. Trodd
Mum likes it very much
Bought this for my mother after she saw this in concert. It moved her to tears at the concert and also on the CD !!
Published 24 months ago by Mr. C. Swales
Eternal Light - A stunning and moving work
Having heard this work performed live at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, involving most of the soloists featured in this recording, I could not wait to get my hands on this CD. Read more
Published on 10 May 2010 by K. Clayson
A MODERN CLASSIC
I recently sang this piece with a local choral society. To start with we were apprehensive about the piece. However, on concert day it was fantastic!! Read more
Published on 22 April 2010 by G. D. Green
Eternal Light by H.Goodall
Whole my fimily loved it! We kept listrening to it day after day, after day...It was also great value for money.
Published on 16 April 2010 by Dr. W. Olszewska
Eternal Light indeed!
We've started to learn this at our local choir. A joy to find it through Amazon and to be able to download it on mp3. Howard Goodall just gets better and better. A glorious piece.
Published on 6 Mar 2010 by Mr. P. A. Thacker
Lost in Wonder, love and Praise
Howard Goodall shows us what can be achieved by contemporary composers. There is very little on the CD that I didn't like. Read more
Published on 22 Nov 2009 by Tess Gregory
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