Think on dreadful domesday for solo Soprano, mixed choir and instruments. Texts: Requiem mass(sections), 2 anon. 15th century poems, Rimbaud, Spenser.

Geoffrey Burgon’s Requiem (1976), which introduces 16th-century texts by St John of the Cross to comment on the Latin liturgy (the 'Kyrie' and 'Sanctus' are omitted), makes use, like Ligeti’s, of ‘splintered’ text-setting, as well as chorus whispering and, for its mysterious ending, the ‘silent’ blowing of air through the brass instruments. Duration: 45'.
Requiem contains:
Part 1: Requiem aeternam
01. Entréme donde no supe 6:57
02. Requiem aeternam (I)4:49
Part 2: Dies Irae
03. Dies irae, dies illa 6:03
04. Rex tremendae majestatis 7:23
05. Lacrimosa dies illa 3:31
Part 3: Libera Me
06. En mí yo no vivo ya 6:34
07. Lloraré mi muerte ya 1:29
08. Agnus Dei (II) 6:26
09. Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine 3:48
10. Requiem aeternam (II) 3:46

♫ 01. Entréme donde no supe
© London 4300 642


♫ 02. Requiem aeternam (I)
© London 4300 642


♫ 03. Dies irae, dies illa
© London 4300 642


♫ 04. Rex tremendae majestatis
© London 4300 642


♫ 05. Lacrimosa dies illa
© London 4300 642


♫ 06. En mí yo no vivo ya
© London 4300 642


♫ 07. Lloraré mi muerte ya
© London 4300 642


♫ 08. Agnus Dei (II)
© London 4300 642


♫ 09. Lux aeterna luceat eis Domine
© London 4300 642


♫ 10. Requiem aeternam (II)
© London 4300 642

About the Decca recording of Burgon's Requiem and Nunc Dimittis: the two works featured on this disc are symbolic of two aspects of Geoffrey Burgon's composing career. The Requiem represents the ambitions of the serious composer while the Nunc Dimittis sums up the extraordinary success Burgon has had as a composer of TV signature pieces and film music. The Nunc Dimittis may be only a three-minute filler but, together with the music Burgon wrote for the Brideshead Revisited TV serial, it is his most famous work. Played at the end of each episode of the early '80s TV adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, it was, if I recall correctly, accompanied by shots of Oxford’s 'dreaming' spires. The music has a dreaming quality as a boy's treble voice floats ethereally over slow moving, sparse textures. On this disc the 1996 recording, with Stephen Cleobury in charge of the Cambridge King’s College forces, is effectively atmospheric and Thomas Hopkinson's treble is certainly more idiomatic than a version made with soprano Lesley Garrett.
Hickox has recorded the Nunc Dimittis in his time but here tackles the meat of the disc. It was the Requiem that launched Burgon's career as a 'serious' composer with its successful premiere at Hereford Cathedral in 1976. It is a work very much of its time, mostly from the ‘blocks of textured sound’ school. However, Burgon eschews some of the more taxing compositional procedures then in vogue and has the courage to employ major and minor triads which, retrospectively, almost makes the work seem forward looking what with the likes of John Adams on the horizon. Although written when he was over thirty, it can be regarded as an early work for Burgon came to full time composition quite late, switching from a career as trumpet player (an instrument that features prominently in his work - witness the Nunc Dimittis). As such, it is extraordinarily assured in the way the orchestral, choral and solo forces are handled.
The same can be said of Hickox in respect of his control of the performance. There is a palpable sense of commitment from all concerned in this recording from twenty years ago, issued here as part of Decca’s new British Music Collection. It is difficult to imagine a more effective rendering. Jennifer Smith, in carrying the lion's share of the solo work, is magnificent in negotiating the vertiginous wide leaps of the soprano part. Of the other two distinguished soloists, Ann Murray confidently tackles what was originally conceived as a male role (although she is no stranger to the interpreting of male castrato and counter tenor roles in the opera house). Anthony Rolfe Johnson displays the authority you would expect from someone who pioneered his part at the premier five years earlier.
The recording sounds extremely well, coping effectively with the contrasts between the pianissimo etherealisms of the opening to the thunderings of the Dies Irae. In the latter, the antiphonal dialogue between the two kettle drums is stereophonic excitement at its finest.

As his Requiem, a fine work of the 1970s which first drew Burgon to widespread public attention, proved, Burgon writes music which makes a direct appeal to the emotions, without artifice.