COMPOSERS: Fauré; Duruflé
LABELS: Sony Essential Classics
ALBUM TITLE: Fauré • Duruflé
WORKS: Requiem; Requiem
PERFORMER: Lucia Popp, Kiri Te Kanawa (soprano), Siegmund Nimsgern (baritone); Ambrosian Singers, Desborough School Choir, Philharmonia Orchestra, New Philharmonia Orchestra/Andrew Davis
CATALOGUE NO: SBK 67182 ADD Sony Essential Classics SBK 67182 ADD 1977
The best things are the ‘Pie Jesu’ solos: Popp sophisticated and secular, Te Kanawa warmer and franker. Otherwise, the Fauré turns slow, bland and bourgeois in an over-Anglican way, despite the professional chorus. Nimsgern sounds wobbly and wan. Davis is less inhibited nowadays but, even twenty years ago, the more innocent and expansive Duruflé loosened him up so that the big moments achieve their proper thrills, while the prevailing calmer moods remain tender, rather than chilly.
Robert Maycock