Give Rest O Our Savior

Conceived in the early days of World War I and published in its a cappella form in early 1917, Kastalsky's Requiem, Memory Eternal for the Fallen Heroes, is a major masterpiece that has yet to be discovered either in Russia or world-wide. Kastalsky was the master trend-setter of the "new Russian choral school," whose work shaped the compositions of Chesnokov, Gretchaninoff, Nikolsky, and Rachmaninoff. This sublime excerpt from his Requiem show how he uses chants and chant-derived melodies to build choral textures of vivid color and great expressive power.