Customer Reviews

Fauré: Requiem - Songs / Bonney, Hagegard, W. Jones; Ozawa

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

 

 

Seji Ozawa and the Boston Symphony Orchestra give a stunning performance here of the Fauré Requiem. This requiem is unique in that it is not a piece meant to instill fear and the terror of death into the listener. Fauré, as a church organist, was tired of hearing and performing masses that were dark, heavy, and macabre. Thus, he created here a requiem mass not focused on the dark aspects of death but rather the beauty and calm of the pending afterlife. This work is one of the most exquisite jewels in the entirety of music. The moving power of the Requiem mass is truly heavenly.

Ozawa gives a very good reading of the Requiem. The recording sound is crystal clear, which brings out the beauty of the choral part writing. This is a wonderful recording.

This is a thoroughly enjoyable CD. I am certainly no authority, but the requiem is performed here with an awesome sense of power and majesty. The other (European) recordings I've heard of this piece pale in comparison and sound lifeless. This one gives me chills.

The solo pieces by Barbara Bonney and Haken Hagegard fit well and are also beautifully performed. Barbara Bonney is now a favorite of mine - she truly shines in these songs.

I don't see how anyone could help but be swept off their feet by this disk - a new favorite of mine.

The highlight of this CD isn't the main work but the 13 songs of Faure performed by Barbara Bonney and her then-hsuband Hakan Hagegard. She in particular is very special in this repertoire, not singing with perfect idiomatic French but sitll using her delightful lyric-coloratura with real artistry. Not since the young Kathleen Battle have these Faure gems sounded so good.

Bonney is also a standout in the Requiem, where Hagegard comes off as rather colorless and lacking in religious fervency in the Libera Me. But it's probably Ozawa who's to blame, since his conducting is often limp instead of reverent. Maybe he equates the two. Orchestra and chorus, as you'd expect, are flawless. If only one didn't feel that the music was being laid out on a table in the morgue. My four-star rating is for the songs.

The Faure Requiem is a gorgeous piece with which most lovers of classical music are probably familiar, and many audiophiles doubtless already own a recording, perhaps the beautifully recorded version led by Robert Shaw on Telarc, for example. In any event, here are two excellent versions of the piece on two different labels at two different prices with two different approaches. Ozawa and his Boston forces present a rather big, warm, lush view of the Requiem, but with care and precision, too -- you might say their rendition is weighty but never overbearing. The RCA CD is filled out with music on a much smaller scale, several songs each for soprano and piano and baritone and soprano. Lovely stuff, and well recorded.

Willcocks and his English forces take a different approach. With a boys' choir rather than a mixed chorus, the sonority is not as lush, but seems to have an angelic purity that is particularly appropriate for this music. This has long been one of my favorite versions of the Requiem, one that I for many years enjoyed on a Seraphim LP. I was overjoyed to discover that it has recently been rereleased by EMI in a budget CD (I paid all of six bucks for my copy) that is generously filled out with the Pavane plus some lovely music by Palestrina. If you enjoy Faure's Requiem but have never heard this superlative rendition, now is your chance to get it at an excellent price.

Indeed, both of these fine CDs are well worth purchasing for those who love the music of Faure. Each features a different approach to the Requiem plus additional fine music that does not duplicate the program of the other release.