Beginnings
It was about 1985 when I played some kind of progressive rock in a band Dorian Grey. The band died a natural death after two years, I sold my amp and guitar. I wasn’t interested in the contemporary music because I had already got my great passion – the early music, the work of the old masters – Palestrina, Monteverdi, Josquin etc. For twenty years I played only the lute music and sang in an early music ensembles as a countertenor. Recently, I met some of my old friends. They urged me to record some of the old rock pieces having in mind my actual experience in music, so I decided to work on some of the old progressive metal stuff I used to play. I invested in some pro gear like PRS and Music Man guitars, 24 bit recording device, Neumann and Shure microphones, triggered drums and much, much more. So I began my recordings. Pretty soon I dropped old Dorian’s pieces toward a new material. And here is the beginning of the project called Master’s Servant. I am working currently on the full length material. The working title is Dies Irae Requiem. The front cover’s image is called "The Morning in the Gardens of Imaginations". I presented it on my 2003 Warsaw exhibition (see also WWW.ANTON-ART.PL).
Music
My great inspiration was a German requiem by Heinrich Schutz, the master who lived in the times of Gabriellis and Completorium of the great Polish composer G. G. Gorczycki.
Text
The lyrics of Master’s Servant Dies Irae Requiem comes from Vulgata, the Latin translation of the Bible.
For centuries the servants of Adonai proclaimed their prophesies speaking about the coming of Sylo, the anointed one, the Messiah. They also prophesised about the future of the world. Prophets Isaias and Jeremiah had been proclaiming the fall of Babylon, the empire which was then in its heyday. It is as if today someone was announcing the total fall and decay of the USA. Prophets were telling about the fall of civilizations and nations like Asyria, Greece of Aleksander, Tyrus, Sidon, Moab, Edom , Egypt etc. They had something to say about our modern times as well…
The lyrics of Dies Irae Requiem is a part of some acclamations of seers like Job, Isaiah, Solomon concerning death. There has been a lot of misunderstanding linked to this topic which is the mix of popular beliefs having its source in Christianity, Greek Philosophy /Plato, Aristotle/, Egyptian and Babilonian beliefs, Roman Catholic’s dogma of immortal soul, folk tradition and so on. In contradiction to all those beliefs the words of the prophets were constant throughout the centuries and unchangeable in spite of their different backgrounds, sensitivities, education and characters.
The canon of the prophet’s writings was emerging for almost two thousands years with a great accuracy and without any changes and interpolations. The death in the words of the prophets is not a happy life after death in the company of babyface angels in heaven, or good fellows-devils in hell. Death is in fact the point of no return. Definite , unconditional, tragic. Non-existence. And this is my Requiem about.
P.S. The unfortunate word used in the Roman Catholic Vulgata, INFERNUS, suggesting the existence after death, is a translation of a Hebrew word SHEOL which meaning is- the grave, the place of silence, the dust "where the dead sleeps till the heaven and the earth are gone..."