Video Information

• Choir: Cunninghame Choir
• Piece: Requiem
• Composer:  Maciej Granat
• Conductor:  Robin Versteeg
• Voices:  SATB plus Mezzo-Soprano solo
• Sheet Music:   www.cunninghame-choir.org...  
• Genres: Classical, Contemporary
• Maciej Granat - Requiem op.36
  for mezzo soprano, mixed choir, piano and string quintet
  in memory of my aunt, Bożena Łanowska
  
  performed by
  The Cunninghame Choir
  Artistic director: Robin Versteeg
  Mezzo sopra...  moreMaciej Granat - Requiem op.36
  for mezzo soprano, mixed choir, piano and string quintet
  in memory of my aunt, Bożena Łanowska
  
  performed by
  The Cunninghame Choir
  Artistic director: Robin Versteeg
  Mezzo soprano: Laura Margaret Smith
  Piano: Maciej Granat
  The Astrid Quartet
  Double bass: Daniel Griffin
  
  performed in St. Bride's Episcopal Church, Hyndland Rd, Glasgow, 14th June, 2015, during the West End Festival
  
  1 Kyrie 00:18
  2 Dies irae! 05:25
  3 A - czy też ona wie (Norwid) 09:16
  4 Mors stupebit 13:35
  5 Ingemisco 16:30
  6 Confutatis 21:03
  7 Lacrimosa 24:22
  8 Fortepian Chopina (Norwid) 28:36
  9 Agnus Dei 32:06
  10 Lux aeterna 35:37
  
  Program notes by Maciej Granat:
  
  The Requiem is written in memory of my aunt, my mother's sister, Bożena Łanowska (pictured on the programme cover). She was my first piano teacher. For ten years she taught me, starting when I was four, and I believe that all I am now as a pianist I owe to her amazing approach, talent, hard work, unbelievable patience and love. During those ten years she was like a second mother to me, as I spent many hours every day under her care, mostly at the piano.
  
  From the very beginning I knew that I needed to make this piece more personal and to represent my aunt in it, or at least my memories of her. That is why I decided to use the melody from my aunt's favourite Christmas carol "Lulajże Jezuniu" (Sleep, baby Jesus) in the Agnus Dei and to quote directly from Chopin's first Scherzo as it uses the same theme and I can remember my aunt playing it every Christmas for the whole family.
  
  Unfortunately my aunt's life was not an easy one. Unfulfilled dreams of becoming a concert pianist, partially due to painful and disappointing relationships with men and the limitations imposed by the communist system in Poland, led eventually to cancer and schizophrenia. T...    less