Panikhida (a setting of the Orthodox requiem service, in English).

Celtic Requiem contains:
01. Requiem aeternam (8'10)
02. Dies irae (8'32)
03. Requiescat in pace (6'17)

♫ 01. Requiem aeternam
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♫ 02. Dies irae
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♫ 03. Requiescat in pace
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Celtic requiem. Requiem for Jenny Jones. (3 movements) for soprano, contralto, bass, children's chorus, SATB chorus and orchestra. Tavener's Celtic Requiem, a Sinfonietta commission, combines the rituals of a mass for the dead, with children's playground games and catches. Among works that exist on the fringe of the genre are John Tavener’s Celtic Requiem (1969), which links liturgy, Irish poetry and children’s games in a manner suitable for stage performance. Others stretch the genre’s boundaries away from the text altogether. Duration: 23'.

Little Requiem for Father Malachy Lynch for voices (soloists and choruses) and orchestra (flutes, trumpet, organ, strings). Dedicated to father Malachy Lynch, who died in 1972, prior of the monnastery of the Carmelites in Aylesford, Kent, Great Britain.

♫ Little requiem for Father Malachy Lynch
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Requiem for Father Malachy Lynch (1973 - revised 1979) is for solo voices: two counter tenors, tenor, two baritone's, bass; and instruments: ensemble, organ and string quartet. Dedicated to father Malachy Lynch, who died in 1972, prior of the monnastery of the Carmelites in Aylesford, Kent, Great Britain.

Akhmatova requiem contains:
01. Requiem
02. Dedication
03. Introduction
04. -
05. -
06. -
07. -
08. -
09. -
10. The Sentence
11. To Death
12. -
13. -Crucifixion
14. -
15. -
16. -
17. Epilogue I
18. Epilogue II

♫ 01. Requiem
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♫ 02. Dedication
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♫ 03. Introduction
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♫ 04.-
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♫ 05.-
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♫ 06. -
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♫ 07. -
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♫ 08. -
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♫ 09. -
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♫ 10. The Sentence
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♫ 11. To Death
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♫ 12. -
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♫ 13. Crucifixion
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♫ 14. -
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♫ 15. -
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♫ 16. -
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♫ 17. Epilogue I
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♫ 18. Epilogue II
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Composed in 1981, the requiem sets anguished verses of the Stalin years by the great Russian poet, interspersed with Orthodox funeral texts, and is one of the finest of all Tavener's works. Bleak yet offering the possibility of eternal peace, the work is a harrowing yet ultimately consoling statement. Duration: 50'.

Requiem (the text of Tavener's 1981-requiem) is a poem written by Anna Akhmatova (ps. of Anna Andreyevna Gorenko: 1889 - 1966) over several years (1935-40). Akhmatova was afraid to keep a copy (because the communists would arrest her) so she wrote it on small scraps of paper; then she memorized each part as it was written. Her friends also memorized the parts from her scraps of paper; thus the poem was preserved in their memories until she was finally able to write it down in 1954 after Stalin's death. This is a brief outline of the poem:

• Lines 1-4 serve as a "frame" for the rest of the poem. The lines state that Akhmatova, the speaker of the poem, was "with [her] people" when "The Great Terror" began. Stalin's police arrested millions of Russians who were then executed or sent to Siberian prison camps. Many of her countrymen fled the Soviet Union but she had chosen to stay.
• INSTEAD OF A PREFACE describes the main situation of the poem: she and hundreds of other women waiting in long lines outside the prison in Leningrad. Akhmatova's son, Lev, was imprisoned there; he was guilty of no crime but was seen as a potential "enemy of the state" because his father (who had been executed in 1921) and his mother were suspected by Stalin of opposing the Communist regime. She and the other women waited on line every day in order to give their loved ones a loaf of bread or other sustenance in the hope of keeping them alive. Akhmatova then explains, in the last lines of "Instead of a Preface," her reason for writing this poem: because she is a poet, she must bear witness to what is happening. The voice of the poem will express emotions that are not only her own; she will attempt to speak for all the Russian mothers.
• DEDICATION explains that the poet is dedicating her work --- and her suffering --- to all the women like her who have been overcome by grief. She is speaking for these women, recognizing the solitariness that their suffering has imposed on them.
• PROLOGUE begins the actual cycle of poems. A sense of the time period is created: only the dead are able to smile.
• 1 : Refers to Akhmatova's husband, arrested in 1935. She says she will keep screaming with her grief.
• 2: The "Don" refers to a major river in Russia. The husband mentioned in the poem is Akhmatova's first husband, arrested and executed in 1921. (They had been divorced but were still friends. He was the father of her only son.)
• 3 : She can't believe that it's she who is experiencing this grief. It can't be real -- but it is.
• 4: The "mocker" and "gay little sinner" refer to herself when she was young and happy, never dreaming of what the future would hold.
• 5-6: She refers to her son, arrested 17 months earlier. She can't understand why this has happened; she fears he will be executed as his father was. The footnote explains "white nights."
• 7. THE SENTENCE : Read footnote #13. Now that she knows the worst, she feels she must be active again.
• 8. TO DEATH and 9 : She passes through two more stages of suffering which involve a prayer for death and then the approach of madness. She can think no longer about her son; she must give up her memories as madness overwhelms her.
• 10.1 and 10.2. CRUCIFIXION : She envisions the three figures at the foot of the cross on which Christ was crucified -- Mary, John, and Mary Magdalene. They each depict a different type of suffering (or a way of dealing with suffering).
• EPILOGUE I: Now she has become one with Mary, the Mother of Christ, and all the mothers who have lost their sons. She describes what suffering has done to her and to them.
• EPILOGUE II: Read footnote. She says that "remembrance" is not a consolation, simply an angry refusal to forget what has happened. She will not allow monuments to be created in beautiful places; the only acceptable monument is one that will be an everlasting memorial to the horror.

This Requiem contains:
01. Promordial White Light 8:19
02. Kyrie eleison 3:49
03. Advaita Vedanta 'The Still Point' 0:55
04. Kali's Dance 6:32
05. Advaita Vedanta 'The Still Point' 0:53
06. Interlude 4:32
07. Ănanda 9:42

♫ 01. Promordial White Light
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♫ 02. Kyrie eleison
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♫ 03. Advaita Vedanta 'The Still Point'
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♫ 04. Kali's Dance
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♫ 05. Advaita Vedanta 'The Still Point'
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♫ 06. Interlude
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♫ 07. Ănanda
© EMI 2 35134 2

Tavener, Requiem: (World Premiere) The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, 28.2.2008 (GMH) As world premieres go, Tavener’s Requiem was one of the most anticipated of recent years. A stupendous performance using the entire cathedral space, the work fused the common traditions of four major religions into one vision – the notion that ‘our glory lies where we cease to exist’. The only sadness had to be the fact the composer could not be present, due to illness. The Dies Irae had to be one of the most hellishly disturbing of any similar movement: massive brass forces which vied with multiple percussion arrayed in the cathedral galleries. Yet, there were the mantra-like passages of serene beauty which almost transcended thought. Soprano soloist Elin Manahan Thomas and her tenor counterpart Andrew Kennedy surpassed themselves in their highly complex and demanding lines while solo cellist Josephine Knight – acting like a narrator – added an additional, almost celestial sound. Again, her lines took the instrument to the very extremes of its range. The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir under Vassily Petrenko and sub-conductor Ian Tracey again produced a commanding performance. However, it had to be the choir which rose ceremoniously to the daunting demands placed on it, that had the most taxing role and the greatest inpact. Often called upon to sing in eight parts, it battled hard – and won – against the considerable forces of the scattered orchestra and organ. And while the fury of the Dies Irae often subsided into an almost Renaissance-like polyphony, the discipline of the choral forces was never once in question though, at times, it did feel like the Dies Irae could easily unravel. The finale movement – Ananda – built slowly into a massive release of energy only to fall back into contemplative repose. The choir was particularly disciplined in their unaccompanied performance of excerpts from Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vigil, a piece of serene power and intensity. The sheer beauty of this heartfelt piece combined the rich harmonic language of Rachmaninov with the power of the Russian Orthodox tradition.