Rufus Wainwright – “Dream Requiem” (Released 31st January 2025)

Description

//Warner Classics//

£75.99 – 2xLP, Limited Edition with 16 Page Booklet

Written during the pandemic, it’s a requiem “for the people we have lost in this crisis, for the past from which we are cut off and for the future to which we do not yet know how to connect, a Requiem for human contact, solidarity and the human voice that have all become dangerous and contagious”.

It’s also a reflection on environmental collapse and the increase in the number of natural disasters. The text of Dream Requiem weaves together words from the Latin Mass for the Dead – as used by his hero Verdi – with Lord Byron’s apocalyptic poem “Darkness,” written after the volcanic eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815 and which brought about “the year without summer.”

‘Dream Requiem’ was commissioned by Radio France, The Royal Ballet, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Palau de la Música Catalana Barcelona, Auditori de Barcelona, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra.

Tracklisting:

1. Darkness I
2. Requiem aeternam
3. Lux perpetua
4. Kyrie, eleison
5. Sequentia I: Dies irae
6. Darkness II
7. Sequentia II: Mors stupebit
8. Sequentia III: Rex tremendae
9. Sequentia IV: Ingemisco
10. Sequentia V: Confutatis
11. Darkness III
12. Offertorium
13. Sanctus
14. Agnus Dei
15. Lux Aeterna
16. Darkness IV
17. In paradisum
18. Applause