Dan Forrest: Requiem for the Living

This is one of the most stunning choral works produced in recent years - but I'm hoping for a better quality performance to be recorded. The soloists are of mixed quality, which greatly diminishes the listener experience at times. The chorus also is not as consistently expressive in this recording as in some other performances I have heard. Hopefully the popularity of the piece will continue and the attention will lead to alternatives in recorded versions.

This has become one of my all-time favorite musical works. I especially love the 2nd movement which reminds me of a lot of the 2nd movement of Bernsteins Chichester Psalms, interweaving both something negative and something beautiful and redemptive. I appreciated the choir and the orchestra in this album but the soloists are hard to listen to. :/ They don't seem to match the expression and skill of the other performers and of the piece itself. I would rate it higher if it weren't for that.. But since there are quite a few solos that rise over top of the choir, it kind of ruined it for me.

Whenever I sing this song, whether with my choir or singing to the music, I am filled with a sense of awe. Within single movements, Dan Forrest brings the music from "sinister precision" (yes, that is a marking in the score) to calm and serene. This is my favorite piece to sing, period.

Dan Forrest's Requiem for the Living is beautiful!! Don't pass over this. This is stunning, hopeful music that will absolutely speak to your heart! Wow!

Words cannot express how much this requiem has meant to me. I recently had the honor of singing in the choir in the New York premiere of "Requiem for the Living" at Carnegie Hall, under direction of conductor James M. Meaders. I have sung many songs in the past, including some pieces much more elaborate and technically impressive than this requiem, yes, but Dan Forrest's "Requiem for the Living" is my favorite. Not only is it full of glorious melodies, harmonies, orchestrations, and motifs, but it's also very spiritual. I don't mean spiritual in a religious sense, although I absolutely love the "Come unto me" solo in "Lux Aeterna"-- I mean that this music is spiritual in that it speaks to us as humans living through pain, loss, and life. When I was learning this requiem, a classmate died in a car accident. Through all the grief, all I could hear was the last line of the Lux, "Dona nobis pacem." Every movement in this gorgeous music is perfect, and the story it tells is one of redemption and restoration. Dan Forrest, you are one wonderful composer, and I thank God for your gift.

I've heard many recordings of requiems done, but Dan forrest is a pure genius and this will be recommended to all of my choir friends and hope to convince our director to do this! Bravo sir on a fine collection!!

Dan Forrest’s Requiem for the Living is absolutely gorgeous, with incredible instrumentation! I have listened to the whole work multiple times in the last week, and it just gets better with each listening!