Requiem Reviews

piano"Requiem" is a stunning new piano solo from Iranian-Canadian pianist/composer Fariborz Lachini. Released as a single, one would be hard-pressed to find a more passionate or eloquent song of mourning in any genre of music. "Requiem" is very classical in structure, inviting comparison to Chopin's many elegies and other pieces that contemplate life's darker and more painful sides. However, Lachini's sensibilities are in today’s world, which is also filled with sadness and difficulty. Deeply affected by the state of music in his native homeland, Lachini's Requiem could commemorate the death of any of the many of kinds of love. The feeling of utter loss and emptiness flows throughout this piece, becoming deeply personal to anyone who hears it. Most of us have had these feelings at some time in our lives (hopefully not too often!), but only a few can express them with the depth and poignant beauty that Lachini has created at the piano. The intimacy and raw emotion of the piece speak a profound truth, and it is easy to visualize Lachini pouring his soul into the music late at night by the light of a single candle, seeking solace in the soothing power of music. "Requiem" is very possibly Lachini's strongest and most beautiful piece of music to date.

Kathy Parsons
2008-03-19

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pianoPrior to pressing the play button, the listener is drawn into the lush notes of the piano. The mood of the song brings to mind a romantic yet somber tone, which speaks to the heart, and teases the soul, while urging the ears to stand at attention and collect every morsel of musicality seeping from this beautiful work. While soaking in a bath tub of warm fragrant water reflecting love once loss, or seated at a bistro dining by candlelight, just feet away from your significant other, Lachini's chivalrous yet enticingly painful melody, will evoke passion, sadness, and a deep appreciation for every note being played. The tempo sets the mind at ease, yet the melody tugs at the heart strings and leaves the listener wanting for more. Lachini unflinchingly relays his message, while oozing all the complex simplicities, that are love, and for that I urge any patron of excellent taste to check this out.

Ebony Moore
2008-04-13

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pianoFariborz Lachini’s work is pregnant with the type of meaning and emotion that could only originate from the type of man who left his home country for the sake of creating music. Heavy with emotion but never burdensome, Lachini’s “Requiem” harnesses deep feelings of truth.
Lachini’s approach to this track reveals the absolute power of understatement. Songs of mourning and loss have a gross tendency for excessive exaggeration but this track glides along poignantly without unnecessary ostentation. Striking and precise, the track’s climax occurs with vehemence. Rumbling piano solos give way to emptiness and stunning dramatics as the track illustrates the waves of emotion that ensue after loss. At the track’s end Lachini’s piano simply fades out like the hushed wind at a grave, or the ability to finally move on after becoming accustomed to living with loss.
Perhaps most important, this piano solo is triumphant in its ability to convey the complex emotions that accompany loss. Elegiac but also seductive, Lachini demonstrates that even though loss can be painful, life moves on and we may still live to tell about our love.

Lauren Proctor
2008-04-14

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pianoRéquiem del compositor y pianista iraní Fariborz Lachini evoca en su melodía la pérdida de algo amado. Además de su nombre en el que la palabra réquiem cobra un sentido diferente al usualmente acostumbrado en las composiciones tradicionales en las que se musicalizan textos bíblicos para la misa de alguien que ha muerto, el uso de la tonalidad menor por parte de Lachini, así como el carácter nostálgico, logran que esta pieza evoque melancolía, una sensación innegable por parte de un músico que sabe transmitir las emociones a través del piano, una capacidad que consagró a los grandes compositores de la historia como el caso de F. Chopin y F. Liszt, músicos con quienes Lachini ha sido relacionado en diferentes ocasiones. El carácter afligido de Réquiem por un amor cautiva al oyente por su profundo sentimiento que de alguna manera se identifica con el sentimiento nostálgico que existe dentro de cada ser humano, un sentimiento de apropiación que quizá se puede comparar con la nostalgia que lograron transmitir los tangueros durante los primeros años del siglo XX.

Por Andrea Baquero
2008-04-19

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pianoOnce, in a classical music course I was taking in college, the professor made a bold declaration -- "there are those who feel and connect with the music of Philip Glass," he said, leaving room for a dramatic pause, "and those who don't." Truer words never spoken. If, as a listener of instrumental music, you've ever found yourself in the former category, you're in for a treat with Lachini's "Requiem." The kind of minimalism that Glass exemplifies shines through in this piece, putting Lachini in the category of a someone who's mastered not only the genre but also the sentiment that runs behind it. Like much of Glass' canon, it's bittersweet, sure -- but it's so far down the sweet end of the spectrum that it's hard to imagine that it's much of anything close to bitter.

Stephanie R. Myers
2008-04-14

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