Culture: Review: Evening of Serious Joy ; City of Birmingham Choir Symphony Hall

Summary

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Verdi's monumental Requiem gave the promoter the perfect opportunity to slip into the programme a new choral work - and what a challenge for a young composer, to come up with something to live alongside Verdi.

Chris Long, commissioned by the Adopt-a-Composer Scheme, chose as his text a valedictory prayer found, or so the story goes, on a victim of Ravensbruck. Framing the prayer-text itself with sections of the Requiem, a clumsily-obvious link with Verdi, Long's O Lord, Remember is quietly sombre without giving in to despair, like the words that inspired it.

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Extract

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Culture: Review: Evening of Serious Joy ; City of Birmingham Choir Symphony Hall

Opening with a bell-like motif, it's colourfully orchestrated,...

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