Bruno Maderna: Requiem

   in Classical Music (Dec, 2015)
The young Maderna conceived his hour-long requiem while interned during the war by the SS, and the work was long thought lost. luckily, this intensely moving work survives, encompassing a vast emotional terrain: a searing, Stravinskian Dies irae contrasting with the lyrical simplicity of the Benedictus et Agnus Dei. If not on the level of Britten’s War Requiem, it deserves a wide audience: if some of the solo singing and the German radio sound are not on the level of the best of today’s choral recordings, this is nevertheless an important release. …