Two Requiems for a Divided Europe
Berlin, the last night of Musikfest. The festival opened with an opera about the end of the world and closed with two masses for the dead: Alfred Schnittke’s fractured, defiant Requiem, scored for drums and electric guitar, and Maurice Duruflé’s gentle, consoling one. Written in Moscow in the mid-1970s and in Paris just after the Second World War, they come from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. In a Europe once again at war, what can a mass for the dead still say to the living? Singers, players and the festival director tell the story of a concert where both were heard as one. With…
The skinny
The skinny isn't ready yet — notes appear once the transcript is processed.