Lloyd Webber: Requiem [Import]

The trouble with reviewing Andrew Lloyd Webber's Requiem is trying to compare it to other Requiem's we are all familiar with without doing either work any unjustice. Sure, I hear a definite influence of Benjaimin Britten, perhaps even a little Bernstein Mass, but this is no War Requiem, and comparing it to other settings by Verdi, Berlioz, Faure, Durufle, or Mozart would be useless. Instead, realize this is a work unto itself.

Andrew Lloyd Webber sets the Requiem and Kyrie, Dies Irae, Rex Tremendae, Recordare, Ingemisco, Lacrymosa, Offertorium, Sanctus (Hosanna), Pie Jesu, Lux Aeterna, and the Libera Me sequences of the mass of the dead. Scored for full orchestra (including saxophones), a huge array of percussion (including drum kit), harp, piano, celeste, synthesizer, and organ, this is an orchestration of monumental proportions. The chorus on the recording includes boy sopranos and altos and male tenors and basses along with solos for boy soprano, tenor (Placido Domingo), and soprano (Sarah Brightman). The voices, soloists especially, have extreme ranges (high and low) making this a work requiring virtuosity in the entire ensemble.

As for the music, everyone's perception of death is a different and personal experience, thus, ones idea of "Requiem" music will be completely different from others. You can find some snatches of chant-like material, pure melodiousness, great dissonance, revelry, bombasticity, and prayerfulness in this setting. Andrew Lloyd Webber exploits his talent of creating memorable melodies and uses thematic economy to tie the entire work together. The purity of the boy soprano is announced at the beginning with simple octave and fifth leaps, and frames the work by ending on a similar note. The soloists and their extreme ranges portray great angst and tension, but later turns into jubilation. I truly believe this is a serious work; each section gives a personal visualization of the Requiem text and creates a roller-coaster of ideas. The inclusion of more ethnic/modern drums in some places give the music its own Andrew Lloyd Webber personal spin.

The entire Requiem is rarely performed in its entirety, nonetheless recorded. This CD will probably remain the preferred performance to have until the end of time, and for good reason. It captures the excitement of a premier recording by consummate artists and performers. If you are looking for an interesting, and perhaps revolutionary, choral work, look no further.

This Requiem is one of the best I have ever heard. I would put it on the same level as Verdi's Requiem and Mozart's Requiem. Webber approaches this sacred work with a style all his own, a style which breaks significantly from that of Mozart, Verdi, Berlioz, and Faure. The rushing Dies Irae - Tuba Mirum is certainly unique among the other four major Requiems, as is the "Hosanna". I am no expert in music, but I do own recordings of the Mozart and Verdi Requiems in addition to this one, and in my opinion, Webber's Requiem stands out as a unique work from a unique voice.

Too many of these reviews set out to answer the question of whether Andrew Lloyd Webber had any business writing a requiem, rather than reviewing this recording. One even mistakes Placido Domingo for Luciano Pavarotti, something not even the most casual dabbler would do. For consumers trying to get a sense of this recording I'll try to cut through the pretentious malarky. This was the premiere recording of Webber's work which was given its first performance with this cast of performers. Webber described this as his most personal work, in which he worked out his complex feelings on the death of his father. He was at the time best known as the composer of "Jesus Christ Superstar" and had not yet written "Cats" or "Phantom of the Opera". His Requiem should be understood in this context of a composer's career trajectory.

Webber's Requiem is not intended to be a massive-scale composition on the order of Verdi, Mozart, Brahms, Mahler, Faure, or Britten. That isn't the sort of composer Webber is and is not what he was trying to accomplish. This is a more intimate setting of the work in similar theatrical terms to "Superstar" expressing the liturgical text in very personal melodious terms. He sets the voices in extreme contrast to one another--the tenor is Everyman (us), praying for and celebrating the imminent release of those pained in death. His joyous "Hosanna . . . Benedictus" is cut across suddenly by the anguished Soprano, who is really the "big picture" voice of judgment in this work. The treble represents the voice of those trapped in purgatory and seeking release through salvation. The tenor thus is a voice that emerges fitfully from the earth to cry out to God, whereas he is continually cut off by the voices of the other soloists who remind us of the fear of judgment, the desolation of purgatory, and the cry from the wilderness to be rescued from abandonment. There are elements of Bernstein and Webber's own musical theater compositions to be found here. It is not the most literal setting of the text as a mass, but it is hardly a failure on its own terms as a theatrical treatment of the liturgy.

Webber was married at the time to Sarah Brightman and wrote this soprano part for her. She was at the height of her career in the period that this was recorded and capable of producing the extreme high tones Webber calls for here. Webber also wrote the tenor part having Placido Domingo in mind. Domingo was at his considerable late-mid career best bloom at the time; Webber took advantage of his vocal warmth and power (and his incisive sense of rhythm) to place him in this work as a voice that pops in and out powerfully to deliver symbolic melodic gestures rather than embed that voice within the work. Paul Miles Kingston, the treble, has a voice of purity and some very resonant overtones which give him a combination of power and innocence.

Critics were not very generous with Webber, any more than they were with much of Bernstein's work. "Stick to the musical theater!" is a common theme with these people who seem to resent anyone with low antecedents daring to try to produce serious music. But as it stands, Webber's Requiem, while not as musically unified as Faure's or Verdi's, does what it sets out to do with returning themes and very melodious passages that express his own personal anguish and grief.