Atlantic Review: Requiem – Önaç Presents Historical Slavery Documents as Angry Life Wails

At LSO St Luke's, London, from funk-tinged grooves to Latin requiem, Gregorian chant to bureaucratic recitative, David Önaç's new oratorio, premiered by the London Symphony Orchestra, is serious and beautiful. How can human life be valued? If you are an insurer, this is not a philosophical question but a practical one. The answer, as it happens, calculated by Lloyd's of London in 1779, was 45 pounds: a figure that

From syncopated funk to Latin elegy, Gregorian chant to bureaucratic recitative, the score to David Unach's new oratorio, performed for the first time by the London Symphony Orchestra, is earnest and beautiful.

Monday 12 October 2026 18.04 CEST Last change on Monday 12 October 2026 18.06 CEST

How do you value human life? If you are an insurer, this is not a philosophical question, it is a practical one. The answer, incidentally, as calculated by Lloyd's of London in 1779, was £45: a figure that stood for each enslaved person carried along with corn, fish and other cargo across the Atlantic. Court transcripts from two decades later describe a woman who was quarantined for smallpox, then bound, blindfolded and tied to a chair. The captain later lamented the loss of "a very good seat."

Archives can tell us what, but art is needed to tell us how man presented the past. Enter composer David Onach - tasked with taking historical documents unearthed from Lloyd's archives and giving them howling, furious life in his new Atlantic Requiem, performed this weekend by the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Great Singers, three soloists and (at the last minute) Merriweather conductor Malcolm.

This is a huge piece - in subject and scope. Önaç's music is beautifully and earnestly composed, making the sound of the black and white keys of the piano symbolic. Movements of opposition, equality and – perhaps – reconciliation. It's a microcosm of a work in which funk and alternative scales of jazz and blues flow into the classical Western architecture of Latin elegy, Gregory's vocals flow into the shrill vulgarity of bureaucratic singing, and soloists soar but shout. The dialogue is particularly effective in the finale's convulsive dance—a chewy textured, highly rhythmic interlude after Agnus Dei's impassioned meditation.

Merriweather steered his troops safely through choppy musical waters, though soloists Britney Rennie, the ever-expressive J'Nai Bridges, and especially tenor Orson Van Gay II were in danger of being overwhelmed by their position behind the orchestra. In many ways, this pair of Sunday afternoon performances at LSO St Luke's (for a very small major project) felt like a workshop for a piece still in the making. Önaç packs a lot into a short span, at the cost of a walk that feels almost restless. Here's a full-length that's dying to break out, and a great new songwriting talent that deserves a space to tell stories that have been silenced for too long.