There are at the moment eight available recordings both of the Stabat mater and of the Litanies, and six of the Gloria – the best mostly by non-French forces. If new native versions of them all were needed, Dutoit, with his sensitivity, vitality and insight, was clearly the right man for the job, and in some respects he outdoes his rivals. The finest performance here is undoubtedly of the Litanies, whose orchestral introduction immediately impresses by its wonderfully hushed sense of reverence. Dutoit respects the composer’s desire for the work to be performed with simplicity: this is an intimate, not an exteriorized, plea (occasioned by the death in a horrible accident of Poulenc’s friend Ferroud, a composer now largely forgotten), and the refrain “Ayez pitie de nous” is uttered with true intensity by a chorus of unmistakably French timbre. There is thoughtful phrasing too in the Gloria, again and again marked by Dutoit’s vision and care over detail. (Unlike Hickox, he follows the score by adopting a constant speed at the start of the “Domine Deus” and by not slowing down for the final “Qui sedes”.) He accents the deliberately-paced initial movement strongly, is light-footed in the Stravinskian “Laudamus te”, is not too slow and avoids sentimentality in “Domine Deus Agnus Dei”, and gives grandeur to the start of the final movement. Francoise Pollet, warm and sweet-voiced in the repeated “Qui tollis peccata mundi”, is radiant in the final Amens.
The Stabat mater, by which Poulenc himself set the greatest store, presents difficulties of balance which here are satisfactorily solved (the basses’ first entry is, for once, not too obscure, and the orchestra do not overwhelm everyone in the fury of “Quis est homo”). And again Dutoit is illuminating in the vigour of “Cujus animam” and the well-judged restraint of “Quae moerabat” (which in Yan Pascal Tortelier’s reading sounded inappropriately cheerful). But in this work the chorus, though good in the unaccompanied sections of “O quam tristis”, too often sing on the underside of notes, the sopranos undershoot some of the high notes, and there is a lack of clean unison at the opening of “Fac ut ardeat”. Ah well, it was perhaps too much to hope that all three works would reach the same level of excellence.'