Duruflé Sacred Choral Works
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Maurice Duruflé
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 5/1986
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: KA66191
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Requiem |
Maurice Duruflé, Composer
Ann Murray, Mezzo soprano Corydon Singers English Chamber Orchestra Matthew Best, Conductor Maurice Duruflé, Composer Thomas Allen, Baritone |
(4) Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens |
Maurice Duruflé, Composer
Corydon Singers English Chamber Orchestra Matthew Best, Conductor Maurice Duruflé, Composer |
Composer or Director: Maurice Duruflé
Label: Hyperion
Magazine Review Date: 5/1986
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: A66191
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Requiem |
Maurice Duruflé, Composer
Ann Murray, Mezzo soprano Corydon Singers English Chamber Orchestra Matthew Best, Conductor Maurice Duruflé, Composer Thomas Allen, Baritone |
(4) Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens |
Maurice Duruflé, Composer
Corydon Singers English Chamber Orchestra Matthew Best, Conductor Maurice Duruflé, Composer |
Author: Michael Oliver
The performance is a very good one: the expert and pure-voiced chorus manage some marvellous shadings of colour at the lower end of the dynamic range; the organ (audible throughout, like a continuo instrument) is a fine one, and beautifully played; the soloists are ideal, able in this context to sing in a restrained and lovely mezza voce almost throughout. And a number of Durufle's more delicate effects, either because of the edition used or because the understatement of that edition and the quiet expressiveness of the performance are so well-matched, come off better in Best's account than in any of the others: the very beginning, for example, where his slowish tempo is absolutely right (less justifiably he is rather placid in the Sanctus too), the withdrawn, hushed quality at the ''Requiem aeternam'' section of the Libera me, and the almost static, contemplative manner (achieved with great control) in the In Paradisum.
Strongly recommended, therefore, both for the admirable compromise of the edition used and for the beauty of the performance. I wish I could be as enthusiastic about the recording. It was I could be as enthusiastic about the recording. It was made in the ample acoustic of St Jude's, Golder's Green, and for all one's gratitude for the wholly appropriate liturgical atmosphere there is a price paid in clarity, especially in the more fully-scored pages, which are muzzy and dense, and in those requiring clean attack, which are softened. You may not mind the sound: another ear might hear it as warm or atmospherically distanced (the chorus is rather backwardly placed), but mine was straining, sometimes, to pick out details that ought to be more clearly perceptible in this version of the score than in the fuller one. Ledger, of course, provides this clarity with ease (though with no lack of space around the sound), and his version would still be my choice for that reason.
Of the two full-orchestral recordings, I prefer Hickox, whose cleanly-focused sound and pure-voiced chorus effectively moderate the richness of the scoring; Andrew Davis's account is for those who prefer richness and warm colour, applied with a generous hand. Despite my reservations, though, the new performance provides something like the best of all worlds in the quieter and more pensive pages, and they predominate, of course. And Best offers perhaps the most sensible of the fill-ups (Ledger has only two of the Op. 10 Motets, Davis the pretty Danse lente and Hickox nothing at all).'
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