For many years I have been nagged by a dream of composing a large choral symphony in honor of those who lost their lives during the Great Patriotic War. Some faint outlines and musical images of the new modern Requiem were already simmering in the back of my mind… One day I shared my dream with Robert Rozhdestvensky, whose poetry has fascinated me for so long with its many wonderful qualities. ‘It is he, who could write the lyrics’ — I thought to myself. And it seems to me that I was right. Anyhow, a very short time after our first meeting, Rozhdestvensky has read out to me the first parts of his ‘Requiem’, and shortly thereafter it was finished.

Remember!
Swift though the stream
of days and years
may flow —
remember!
To those who fell
a debt of love
we owe —
remember!
This debt lives on:
no tears
can e’er repay,
nor sorrow;
We must
keep faith with them
today,
tomorrow.