VOTD 1/18/2023

 Frank Martin: Requiem (Jecklin)

Purchased from Jerry's Records, from the Duquesne University collection

I've been listening to requiems recently. Maybe it's partly for inspiration, partly out of curiosity, and partly because I was digging into the requiem by Aribert Reimann, a post-war composer I didn't know at all. I will probably write about that work here in a future post. 

Along the way, I've also listened to requiems by Ockeghem, Mozart, Ligeti, and the Dies Irae of Penderecki. Ockeghem sounded like just another mass. Mozart, the famous "Lacrymosa" is indeed moving, but the work as a whole wasn't terribly interesting to me. Ligeti's Requiem, most notably appearing in pieces in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, is at times amazing. I wonder, looking over the score, how accurately it can be performed. My guess is that even the best reading only comes within a percentage of what is written down. 

It's very unusual that I would be listening to a composer such as Frank Martin so soon after the previous time. He's the sort of 20th century "conservative" composer who doesn't normally interest me. The previous record I put on, Five Songs of Ariel and Other Festive Choral Music, was clearly written to sound more Renaissance-like. Here, he's sounding more like a turn of the 19th-20th century composer, even if the work was written in 1973. The harmonies are a little bolder, less triadic, a touch more sturm und drang. It's scored for a quartet of vocal soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and grand organ. 

I was wondering if anyone performs Frank Martin's music. A quick view of a website devoted to his work indicates that his pieces will be performed regularly in the coming year, particularly his Mass for double choir a cappella. Most of the performances listed will be in Europe, though the Mass will be performed in New York and Israel, by different groups. 

This makes sense to me. Even if I sometimes wish Martin would go more post-Germanic-Romanticism, it's good for churches to have music performed that doesn't sound like it came from the 17th century.