Mieczysław Weinberg Mieczysław Weinberg (December 8, 1919 – February 26, 1996) was a Polish, Soviet, and Russian composer and pianist. Born in Warsaw to parents who worked in the Yiddish theatre in Poland, his early years were surrounded by music. He taught him ...

composed his Requiem, Op. 96, between 1965 and 1967. Like other

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

Requiem compositions such as

Dmitri Kabalevsky Dmitry Borisovich Kabalevsky ( ; – 14 February 1987) was a Soviet composer, conductor, pianist and pedagogue of Russian gentry descent. He helped set up the Union of Soviet Composers in Moscow and remained one of its leading figures during ...

's, it does not set to music the

Roman Rite The Roman Rite () is the most common ritual family for performing the ecclesiastical services of the Latin Church, the largest of the ''sui iuris'' particular churches that comprise the Catholic Church. The Roman Rite governs Rite (Christianity) ...

liturgy Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. As a religious phenomenon, liturgy represents a communal response to and participation in the sacred through activities reflecting praise, thanksgiving, remembra ...

, but secular poems by

Mikhail Dudin Mikhail Aleksandrovich Dudin (; – 31 December 1993) was a Russian Soviet prose writer, poet, translator and journalist, war correspondent. Public figure, screenwriter, author of lyrics and over 70 books of poetry. Hero of Socialist Labor (19 ...

, Munetoshi Fukugawa,

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27, a g ...

, Dmitri Kedrin and

Sara Teasdale Sara Trevor Teasdale (later Filsinger; August 8, 1884January 29, 1933) was an American lyric poet. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and used the name Filsinger after her 1914 marriage. In 1918, she won a Pulitzer Prize for her 1917 poetry ...

. The use of anti-war texts links this work to

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

War Requiem The ''War Requiem'', Op. 66, is a choral and orchestral composition by Benjamin Britten, composed mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The ''War Requiem'' was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, in the Englis ...

, which Weinberg knew well. It consists of the following movements: # ''Bread and Iron'' (1. Хлеб и железо Dmitri Kedrin) # ''And Then...'' (2. И затем …

# ''There will Come Soft Rains'' (3. Будет ласковый дождь

) # ''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 has b ...

) # ''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 Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, with

Thomas Sanderling Thomas Sanderling (; born October 2, 1942) is a German conductor born in the Soviet Union. Life and career Sanderling was born in Novosibirsk (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Soviet Union). His father was the conductor Kurt Sande ...

conducting. The Requiem was published by

Peermusic Peermusic is a United States–based independent Music publisher (popular music), music publisher. History Ralph Peer, a field recording engineer and Artists and repertoire, A&R representative for Victor Records, went on a scouting trip to Brist ...

'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