FAURÉ Requiem
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Gabriel Fauré
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Resonus Classics
Magazine Review Date: 11/2016
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 58
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: RES10174
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Requiem |
Gabriel Fauré, Composer
Choir of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue David Pittsinger, Baritone Gabriel Fauré, Composer John Scott, Conductor Richard Pittsinger, Treble St Luke's Orchestra |
Cantique de Jean Racine |
Gabriel Fauré, Composer
Choir of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue Gabriel Fauré, Composer John Scott, Conductor St Luke's Orchestra |
Messe basse |
Gabriel Fauré, Composer
Choir of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue Gabriel Fauré, Composer John Scott, Conductor St Luke's Orchestra |
2 Offertories |
Gabriel Fauré, Composer
Choir of Saint Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue Gabriel Fauré, Composer John Scott, Conductor St Luke's Orchestra |
Author: Tim Ashley
This is a fine choir, the treble tone appealingly bright, altos and tenors unearthly yet beautiful in the Offertoire, and the tenors on their own super-refined at the start of the Sanctus. David Pittsinger is the admirably consolatory baritone, and his son Richard the secure treble soloist in the Pie Jesu. The reverberant acoustic of St Thomas’s Church itself adds immeasurably to the liturgical atmosphere, though we lose some orchestral detail and the balance is top-heavy, the lower voices sometimes obscured. As one might expect with such a frequently recorded, editorially complex work, the competition is stiff, not least from Stephen Cleobury’s scholarly account (King’s College, 10/14) and Paavo Järvi and the Choeur de l’Orchestre de Paris (Virgin, 5/12), altogether grander in approach, using the 1900 score.
Cool, unsentimental performances of the Cantique de Jean Racine and the Messe basse are among its companion pieces. Less familiar is the Op 65 pairing of the Ave verum and Tantum ergo from 1911, possibly written for the Madeleine trebles, though the published score stipulates female voices. Plainchant morphs into something curiously like Gounod in the Ave verum; Tantum ergo, with its closely woven solo writing, is perhaps more immediately attractive. Both, however, are most persuasively done.
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