Word: requiem
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Requiem for a Nun is no requiem, and its "nun" is a 17th century word for whore. It was adapted by Novelist William Faulkner from his 1951 sequel to his 1930s shocker, Sanctuary. The story is a further look at Temple Drake (Ruth Ford), the Sanctuary college girl who landed in a Memphis brothel-and loved it. In Requiem, Temple has become a guilt-ridden, respectable wife, grappling for salvation. Boston critics agreed that it promised spiritual significance, but found it dramatically static. The Catholic Pilot's George E. Ryan commended it for "daring to grapple with the question...
VistaVision. To some listeners, Scherchen's musical concepts seem to have an oppressively Teutonic solemnity, partially because he sometimes favors slow tempi. But in large works, such as Berlioz' Requiem Mass, he succeeds in conveying a stunning sense of power. His recent recording (for Westminster) of the Requiem has a VistaVisioned breadth that probably no other conductor could bring to it. Yet Scherchen also has remarkable ability to draw forth individual strands, delineating them in unforgettable detail...
...audiences rapt through the whole of Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise and through the complete Schumann Dichterliebe. He has reached an even wider public through his 40-odd LP recordings, including Hugo Wolf's 16 Songs, Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice, Brahms's German Requiem, albums of Mahler songs...
Cherubini was an important figure in musical history, due mainly to his work in the early romantic opera and the fact that he was an influential composer in the early 19th Century. Today, his works, with few exceptions, are praised but unperformed, the D minor Requiem being a case in point. It contains moments of great beauty, and dramatic power; but these are moments only, and the total impression of the work is that of formless wandering, held together by the text rather than any musical coherence...
Last night's performance, which was led by the Glee Club's conductor, Victor Yellin, was generally uneven, though it too, like the Requiem, had some high points, notably the stunning Gregorian chant tenor solo, sung by Donald Brown. The Williams Glee Club sang with perfect intonation and balance, but these could not make up for its unpolished and open tone. An uneasy, strained quality dominated the performance, relieved only occasionally by sections of tonal warmth...