Duruflé - Requiem

After all the percussive fury from the Bartok and Prokofiev piano works I felt like something very different. Recently I purchased a CD that I have known for ages. But I didn't have it in my collection. My father has it and I have been carrying it along on my Sony mp3 player. It's a 1984 recording of the Duruflé Requiem on the Telarc label. So it  hails from the very beginning of the CD era. But at that point Jack Renner and Robert Woods, two classically trained musicians who set up Telarc in 1977, had been recording digitally for several years. Renner was (likely still is) an adept of a minimal miking technique, using only 2, 3 or 4 mikes to record a symphony orchestra. Mercury Living Presence served as his reference point. Personally, I've always had mixed feelings about Telarc recordings. It's a weighty, nutty sound but often also a little dry and boxy, I find. It used to be the very opposite of the early Chandos sound, with its resonant acoustics and aggressive, rather hollow highs. However, there are some very successful Telarc albums and this one is certainly one of them. It's a case where the spirit of the recording, the nature of the work and its interpretation by the performers form a coherent whole.

The Duruflé Requiem is a wonderful composition, mellifluous to the extreme but never banal. One can sense a very high level of craftsmanship behind the music. There is nothing gratuitous. Everything is carefully considered, polished and poised. The musical language is an intriguing mix of Gregorian chant and Debussy-like impressionism. It is performed here by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus led by the 'dean' of American chorales, Robert Shaw. These are very large forces. In an age of 'authentic' performances, it sounds awfully 'uncorrect'. But despite its apparent old-fashionedness, the performance stands like a rock. The singers and orchestra bring the music to life with genuine conviction. It speaks of devotional fervour but at the same time is pervaded by an uncanny sense of deep tranquillity which is very apposite in this work. Finally, the Telarc engineers have created a sound that breathes a startling impressionistic aura. This is as far as you can get from the close-miked, analytical recordings that have become the norm. Orchestra and chorus are merged into a single, pulsating whole. The dimensions of the soundscape are oceanic! It's sounds like its performed in open air, with a massive chorus receding into the distance. The music completely dissociates from the speakers. There is not a hard edge anywhere. Voices seems to hover in the air. And yet there is precision too. The solo contributions from the instruments can be clearly positioned. There are no vocal soloists here. Their parts are alloted to the chorus (apparently a version that was sanctioned by Duruflé), which is clearly understandable throughout. The music is almost always soft, apart from some very brief climaxes. These have been given fantastic weight in this recording. For example, the  short climax in the Sanctus is one of the most exciting crescendos ever taped. The music surges and bursts into a (literally) blinding apotheosis and dies down immediately afterwards. Magnificent. Also the organ is very well taped. The ability to get deeper into the lower end of the spectrum was one of the motivations for Renner and Woods to go digital at such an early stage. Here the instrument has a wonderful presence. All in all it's a very special, moving experience. This recording is a classic worth treasuring.