Kastalsky: Memory Eternal (1917)

GRAMMY NOMINATION - Best Choral Performance (2019)

(This album was recorded using Musica Russica’s edition of Alexander Kastalsky’s Memory Eternal to the Fallen Heroes.)
 
Kastalsky’s Memory Eternal represents a major addition to the lineup of Russian choral masterworks as well as to the repertoire of Requiem settings by major Romantic-era composers. The present album is a world-premiere recording of the 1917 a cappella version, which the composer fashioned from previously composed choral-orchestral versions, as well as a version for chorus and organ. At that time, critics hailed Kastalsky’s Requiem as the most important sacred choral work composed in Russia since Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil (1915). After one hundred years of undeserved neglect, the work has been resurrected, through Musica Russica’s publication of the score and the Clarion Choir’s performance and recording, garnering similar critical acclaim.
Reviewer Ivan Moody has written in Gramophone: ‘The Clarion Choir, under the sure direction of Steven Fox, turn in a thrilling performance... Nobody interested in Russian music of the 20th century should miss [this recording].” (Read the full review here.) Other critics, including Grego Applegate Edwards and Stephen Greenbank, have offered similarly positive reviews. —V.M.