Customer Reviews

Fauré: Requiem

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Faure's Requiem is one of my favorite pieces. I have several different versions of it on CD and have even performed it myself with choir and orchestra (I am a tenor).
Based on the excellent reviews I went ahead and purchased this version and I am listening to it as I write this review.
This is definitely the clearest and cleanest performance of this requiem I have heard yet. I enthusiastically recommend it.
If you like Faure, also try Pelleas & Melisande. The Deutsche Grammophon version with Seiji Ozawa is very good. I had lost my tape and decided to purchase the CD recently. It comes with one of the best chorus versions of the Pavane (the one on this Requiem CD is very good but instrumental only).

I have been sampling other performances of the beautiful, moving Requiem, but there simply is no other as pure, and perfectly balanced -- the sorrow and darkness of grief is here, but unlike other requiems, in a way that touches the heart gently, lightly, and soothes the pain of loss. When you hear this recording, you somehow know that death is not the end.

I have known this recording for over forty years since I first sang the piece in my school choir and since as the baritone soloist, and I have never found one to match it. The pure, cool sound of the King's College trebles is ideal; there is none of the distracting edge or unsteadiness too often encountered in rival versions - surprisingly, even in the recording on the Regis label by David Hill conducting the normally excellent Westminster Cathedral Choir - and Willcocks knows exactly how to pace the proceedings and shade the dynamics. Treble soloist Robert Chilcott sings divinely, dead on the note without gulps or scoops, while John Carol Case's plaintive baritone hits just the right tone of entreaty.

The sound is remarkably clean despite the resonant acoustic. This is still the best version available.

We were approached by a friend who is an older lady who cares for an even older person. We were only asked if this item was even available at all as it is from her youth, she is a professed nun. As a surprise, we bought it and another similar one for her. We didn't let her know we had found it until we presented both of them to her. She has thanked us several times, so I believe it is a winner. Well shipped & enjoyed!

Beautiful. Simply beautiful. I have performed this piece myself and listened to many other recordings, and this is truly the best one I've heard yet. The only problem I have is with the sound of the sopranos in the Sanctus movement. Other than that, a true masterpiece.