In memoriam Litvinenko

THURSDAY 7 DECEMBER 2006 *In memoriam Litvinenko*
It was four years ago that Alexander Litvinenko came to a TONUS
PEREGRINUS concert in London and expressed his appreciation of
our music in impassioned terms.  I had no idea who he was at the
time, and so was surprised as I could possibly have been when we
were asked at short notice to sing at a private ceremony one
Thursday afternoon in December following his burial in Highgate
Cemetery.  A moving sequence of speeches in English and Russian
was interspersed with unaccompanied choral music - a mixture of
traditional Russian settings by Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, and
Kalinnikov, and my settings of 'There is a green hill far away',
'Adoro Te', and 'Libera me' from the Requiem.  Amid all the
controversy in the press coverage about Mr Litvinenko's murder,
little mention has been made of the human element.  Those
assembled at the ceremony may have had different backgrounds and
points of view, but - as one eyewitness put it - "they were a
bewildered community in exile united in grief for the loss of a
man who was clearly loved, seeking solace in music that can
transcend cultural and national boundaries."

'There is a green hill'
SCORE:
http://shop.thewelcomestranger.org/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=37
CD:
http://shop.thewelcomestranger.org/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=7
VIDEO:
http://tonusperegrinus.co.uk/indexTP.html
YOUTUBE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39pFiDzTQUo&eurl=

'Adoro Te'
SCORE (direct from Faber Music):
http://fabermusic.com/serverside/publications/Details.asp?ID=0571520839
CD:
http://shop.thewelcomestranger.org/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=11

'Libera me'
SCORE (direct from Faber Music):
http://fabermusic.com/serverside/publications/Details.asp?ID=0571518303
CD:
Faber New Choral Works - FM19 (currently hard to find)


Antony Pitts
www.tonusperegrinus.co.uk