Artist: TRIPTYKON with THE METROPOLE ORKEST
Album: REQUIEM LIVE At ROADBURN 2019 (CD)

Release date: 15.05.2020
EAN/UPS: 0194397336320
Media type: CD

It was 2018, yet again sixteen years after Warrior had last worked on the Requiem, when Walter Hoeijmakers, founder of the distinguished Roadburn Festival contacted Triptykon to offer his support for the completion of the project and propose Roadburn as the venue to perform, at long last, the full, finished Requiem. This was the impetus needed, and Warrior thus began writing the elusive middle part of the Requiem in earnest. It would be called Grave Eternal.

The timing was just right: in spite of the direct Celtic Frost-lineage, Triptykon had very much developed its own, highly regarded identity in the intervening years. Triptykon's first two albums, Eparistera Daimones (2010) and Melana Chasmata (2014), released through the band's own Prowling Death Records (also a Celtic Frost-derived operation) in close partnership with Century Media Records, had been granted considerable international acclaim, and Triptykon's selected concerts had long since established the act's uniquely sophisticated heaviness in the contemporary scene.

Moreover, Roadburn's considerable resources provided for an ideal partner for such a substantial undertaking. It was Hoeijmakers who suggested the collaboration with the Dutch Metropole Orkest, an ensemble perfectly suited for such an undertaking. The conductor chosen was Jukka Isakkila, from Finland, and the classical arranger was long-time Triptykon affiliate Florian Magnus Maier, from Germany and the Netherlands.

Whereas the original first part of the Requiem as recorded in 1987 was written in an almost entirely untainted environment where metal/classical collaborations were a highly daring novelty, 1986's Winter and particularly 2019's Grave Eternal were born into a world where such collaborations had become the de rigueur means to attain artistic credentials for many metal bands. Given such an inflationary proliferation of existing metal songs accompanied by classical instrumentation, it is worth noting that the Celtic Frost/Triptykon Requiem was written specifically for band and orchestra from the very beginning.

After a year dominated by songwriting, arranging, meetings, determining the configuration of the orchestra, rehearsals, and demo recordings, the finished three parts of the Requiem were for the first time performed by band and orchestra in two dress rehearsals at Hilversum, Netherlands, on April 10 and 11, 2019. This, quite literally, set the stage for the actual live performance at Roadburn, on April 12, 2019.

The concert marked the first time the Requiem's first and third parts, Rex Irae and Winter, had ever been performed live, and the very first time the public heard the new second part, Grave Eternal. Fully aware that they were therefore attending a historic event, the audience's reaction was frenetic.

Both dress rehearsal and concert were recorded. The splendid result, one year after the event, is this remarkable album, Triptykon's third: Requiem (Live At Roadburn 2019).

CD (50:50 min.):

1. Rex Irae (Requiem, Chapter One: Overture) (06:34)
2. Grave Eternal (Requiem, Chapter Two: Transition) (32:28)
3. Winter (Requiem, Chapter Three: Finale) (06:54)
4. Winter (Concert Rehearsal Take April 11, 2019) (04:46) Bonus Track