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Famous Armenian Composer Tigran Mansurian’s "Requiem" CD Album will be released in a few days. Although only an announcement has been made about this, the European media outlets have already covered the topic. “Requiem” composition has been recorded by famous ECM Company of Munich.

It is co-commissioned by the Munich Chamber Orchestra and RIAS Chamber Choir in Berlin and first performed by them in Berlin.

Maestro Mansurian today held a meeting with the students and lecturers at Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences, during which he announced about the release of the "Requiem" CD.

Tigran Mansurian presented the history of the creation of the Requiem composition.

“My parents were raised in an orphanage having survived the turmoil of the First World War and the Armenian Genocide. The impressions of those years were always alive in our home, especially during my childhood years. I have always lived in that atmosphere. My mother have told me many stories. I never thought about composing a requiem. However, there came a time when I felt such a need [for writing a requiem]. In order to write it, I needed to create an enormous cultural field related to that genre.

I began writing a requiem, however I left it unfinished, as I felt that it was not the way it was meant to be. The second attempt ended in the same way.

One day, one of my friends – the conductor of the Munich Chamber Orchestra, proposed me to write the Requiem. I began to cooperate with Munich Chamber Orchestra and RIAS Chamber Choir in Berlin.

I worked on this work for two years. Its premiere was held in 2011, Berlin to be followed by its performances in many states. It lived its own life,” the composer said.

A part of the Requiem called Lamb of God was performed during the meeting. In the words of  Tigran Mansurian, the requiems usually have such an ending.

“I have to admit that I received the CD from Germany 15 days ago and have not still managed to listen to it. I am listening it for the first time, the recording has been performed well. In general, I am not used to listening to my own music,” the composer said.

Asked what significance a language has for a musician, he said: “Language is a great school: its phonetic system, accentuation, semantics, psychology. Any word has lived a life and has an experience, that makes it a word. It has century-long history. Of course, musicians pass different paths and have different grounds; however language plays an exceptional role in all that.

In case of the Requiem, I had to use a Latin text, so that not only we, Armenians, but also any music group manages to perform it. The text was in Latin, but I composed it upon the basis of the Armenian music tradition. I was singing in Latin but the words seemed to be in Armenian for me.”