Slowly but surely, Hyperion is drawing to the end of its survey of the music of Robert Simpson. This new recording also allows a glimpse of Simpson's rationalist-humanist outlook. All perceived human acts endure through the generations. Among his fellows no man can vanish utterly, not even in death.
All human lives change others, and so through the generations.
Malignant change will kill the race. Even so, every man must strive to deserve remembrance. Thus will he vivify the unremembering generations after him. So in life can death be overcome. In form Media mortis in vita sumus is a prelude and fugue, scored for chorus and the same brass forces that are required for Beethoven 9, since it was written to accompany a performance of that work.