Requiem by Dafydd Bullock

Trajecti Voces
La Pellegrina OrkestProject

Susan Bullock, Soprano
Conductor: Dirkjan Horringa

This Requiem, like every other, is deeply personal. It was begun in 1994 following the death of my father, put aside, and completed at my house in Wales in the weeks following the death of my mother, in 2000.

Written for mixed choir, soprano solo and string orchestra, the seven movements are more or less based upon the texts and the format of the funeral service given for my mother. As well, some of the traditional Latin is used. The work includes settings of Psalm 121 and the Nunc Dimittis which also provides the final Meditation. The third movement, ‘Death is nothing at all’, for Soprano Solo, is the very core of the work, and its ‘message’.

The story of the Requiem is quite amazing. It was written with great reluctance and very rapidly. Almost before the (digital) ink was dry, Dirkjan Horringa phoned from the Netherlands to ask if, by chance, I might happen to have a ….. Requiem! … for Trajecti Voces to perform in 2001. We never looked back!

The very beautiful performances given by the choir, orchestra, soprano Susan Bullock and the inspired conducting of Dirkjan Horringa have had a profound effect on every audience. Miraculously, this recording of the most moving of the initial concerts is not only technically perfect (thank you, Hartmut Aufderstrasse!) but also free from the normal audience noises which all too often can intrude.

I regard both performance and recording as absolutely definitive, and am deeply grateful to all involved.

Dafydd Bullock was born in Llanberis, Wales. In 1995 he was admitted to the highest Order of the Gorsedd of Bards. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2005.
Works include 39 Symphonies, 19 Symphonic Poems, 2 Operas, 2 Requiems, 2 Mass settings, a Missa Brevis, an Oratorio, 40 String Quartets, 9 Trios and other chamber music and many songs and pieces for piano, and 41 CDs.

bullockmusic.info