John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

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John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

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This generously programmed disc provides excellent value and outstanding performances of both major and lesser-known masterpieces of French choral music. The Fauré Requiem has been recorded many times, and several excellent versions of the original orchestration are available on disc. This one is among them, owing to John Eliot Gardiner's experience and perfectionist mastery of details overlooked by less-successful choral conductors. The real bonus here is the inclusion of the popular but very difficult Debussy and Ravel chansons, and the rarely heard but eminently worthy little part songs by Saint-Saëns. These pieces are a lesson in how to achieve maximum effect with the simplest materials.

Review by David Vernier

Good recordings of Faure's Requiem, whether (as here) in the version of 1883 or in the full orchestral score of 1890, are reasonably plentiful, and, though it is always interesting to find what John Eliot Gardiner will do with a work one has not heard him conduct before, this new addition to the catalogue hardly strikes me as being so revelatory in its treatment of the main work as to eclipse, or even be preferable to, several of its predecessors. Its attraction, as a selling and buying proposition, lies rather in what would otherwise be called the 'fill-ups'. These are short but delightful choral works, none of them over-familiar and some not found in the current catalogue at all.
Faure's Les Djinns, for instance, is an amusing early piece, keeping the choir on its toes and the pianist busy too. The Madrigal, a gentle and highly civilized poetic debate between the sexes, is utterly charming, and both of these are graced by the playing of Sabine Vatin on an Erard piano of 1874 loaned from the Chateau de Champs-sur-Marne, an instrument of particularly refined tone and highly apt for the purpose. Of the three part-songs by Saint-Saens, two (Op. 68) have been recorded previously by the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge, under Timothy Brown, and I don't find their performance in any way inferior to the new one; in ''Des pas dans l'allee'' Gardiner observes imaginatively the composer's use of silence. All are miniatures of great beauty. Better-known are the Debussy and Ravel, exquisitely subtle in word-setting and the skill of choral writing. Both were included in a recital by the Cambridge Singers under John Rutter, which I enjoyed more unreservedly than MR who reviewed it. It is true that Rutter characterizes the first of the Ravel songs (''Nicolette'') with humour that may be too overt, which certainly is not so with Gardiner and his singers. In fact all of these pieces are treated with exactly the sensitivity which the composers themselves must have dreamed of finding one day in their choral singers: and that includes a depth of seriousness when required, as in the first of the Debussy set and the second of the Ravel.
Comparison with Rutter arises again in the Requiem. Though Nectoux and Delage were at work on their edition at the time, it was Rutter who first put this 1883 version before us. In many ways his performance and Gardiner's are very similar when compared in turn with those which have come in between. For instance, a notable feature of this score is the allotment of the violin part in the Sanctus to a soloist (no violins at all apart from this). In the Trinity College recording under Richard Marlow the soloist is placed well-forward and plays with full-bodied tone: in both Gardiner's and Rutter's recordings it is a much more wispy sound, a distant hovering brightness. In the Agnus Dei, the three 'steps' downwards at the first forte are distinct and marcato in both Gardiner and Rutter, less so in Marlow and Best. Gardiner presents the work in a rather darker light than Rutter but is never ponderously solemn. His choir is responsive and scrupulous as ever, and rarely can the passage for altos and tenors at the start of the Offertoire have been more beautifully done. Gilles Cachemaille makes nothing specially memorable of his solos, but Catherine Bott is ideal in the Pie Jesu. The orchestral work and that of the organist are equally fine, and it was an inspired notion to have the trebles of Salisbury Cathedral sing the In Paradisum. The Requiem and part-songs were recorded in different buildings, alike in being just a degree too reverberant; I also find, in comparison with the other versions, a lack of immediacy here. Much to enjoy, even so.'

Gramophone

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John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

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John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

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John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

Close

×

John Eliot Gardiner - Gabriel Faure: Requiem; French Choral Works: Saint-Saens, Debussy, Revel, Faure (1994)

Close