I like Otto Olsson's Requiema lot. The opening melody is sweet and easy on the ears. The singing is excellent! Predominantly choral, the soloists compliment the mood rather than distracting from it as so often happens. This performance of an outstanding composition is not to be missed!

Written between 1901-1903, the composition has many of what I consider to be the traditional markers of romantic period styling: excellent melodies, dramatic interpretation of the text, internal cohesion through the drama, the sensation that there is more at work than mere death. What separates this from the Verdi, for example, is the absence of any kind of "recitativ" passages to bridge between "aria" passages. Olsson has given his Requeim many of the same strengths as the Berlioz, but on a much smaller, far more intimate scale. Where the Berlioz and the Verdi were largely more concerned with the drama of the text, Olsson has created a work for the living, the survivors of someone lost, that evokes rememberance.

I find myself being swept away as I listen, carried aloft by the melodies. I contemplate the life of a soul after its mortality, and I ponder what my life will be like for the absence of that soul. Any music that can evoke ponderances like this is incredible indeed. Get this one!

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