Resonances of Waterloo
St Salvator’s Chapel Choir (University of St Andrews),
Tim Wilkinson, Sean Heath (organ)
The Wallace Collection, Anthony George
Sanctiandree SAND0007. 71’23

What an extraordinary recording! It combining musical curiosity with a fascinating peek at a history that many will recall from school. It features the joint forces of the Saint Salvator’s Chapel Choir of the University of Aberdeen and the brass instruments of The Wallace Collection, together with a historic organ dating from 1829 in a church that couldn’t be more appropriate for the programme. The principal work is the Requiem à la mémoire de Louis XVI by the Austrian composer, Sigismund von Neukomm (1778-1858). Composed in memory of the French King Louis (who was guillotined in 1793 at the height of the Revolution), it was first performed in 1815 in St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna on the anniversary of the King’s death as a landmark event during the Congress of Vienna, the two-year gathering that brought to an end the Napoleonic Wars. Continue reading →