Roman Maciejewski (1910 98) wrote his Requiem over a period of 15 years, between 1945 and 1959, during which time he lived in Sweden and the United States. In fact, having left Poland in 1934 to study with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, he never returned to his native country.

The Requiem is dedicated to the victims of all wars; and since Maciejewski was convinced that music should be accessible to all listeners, he made a conscious decision to avoid anything remotely ‘avant-garde’. The work is accordingly traditional in style and form, deliberately connected to the history of Western music (the thoroughgoing classical fugue that is the Kyrie is a good example). The orchestration is skilful (the inclusion of the piano is a particularly felicitous touch) and very atmospheric: the brooding introduction to the Graduale is particularly impressive. The gently glowing Tractus is perhaps the work’s highlight but it has to be said that not all the music is equally memorable. In fact, it is very difficult to pin the composer’s style down at all, even though there are suggestions of other composers from time to time throughout the work (for example Stravinsky, Frank Martin and, as one might expect, Verdi). It’s intermittently impressive in spite of the fact that the composer’s personal voice is somewhat elusive.

This disc is a reissue of a recording made as long ago as 1989 but it shows little sign of age. The performance is very good indeed, refined and exuberant as required, and all four soloists are outstanding.