“In February of 2014, both of my grandparents died within a day of one another. My grandfather was ill, the call was hardly unexpected; my grandmother seemed no worse for wear than she ever had, and yet, some seven hours after finding out her husband of over half a century had passed, she bid goodnight to her friends and passed gently in her sleep. At the time, I was on a plane, bound for one funeral, which grew to a double a few hours before I landed—an event that had the Rabbi who was to officiate scrambling for protocol. This piece, Requiescat, is as close to a prayer as I get, and features two quotations which I will not reveal—the one, from my grandfather (a wonderful educated man whose bookshelf was my first library) dominates the piece; the other, from my grandmother (a more complicated figure) makes a lone interruption. The work was written for the New York Philharmonic’s first New Music Biennial."—D.F.

The New York Philharmonic is the oldest symphony orchestra in the United States and one of the world’s most revered cultural institutions. Founded in 1842 by local musicians, the Philharmonic is currently led by Alan Gilbert, who joins a roster that has included such names as Antonín Dvorák, Gustav Mahler, Otto Klemperer, Richard Strauss, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, and Leonard Bernstein. Michael Adelson conducted the 2014 NY Phil Biennial performance of Felsenfeld’s Requiescat excerpted here.