Scientific Survey: Fauré’s Requiem

[Todd]

After the immense and universally lauded success of my unparalleled, unrivalled, and flawless Beethoven piano sonata survey, I decided to turn my attention and now patented mostest, bestest scientific listening technique to one of my favorite choral works, Gabriel Fauré's Requiem.  Exhaustive and thorough consideration of the piece led to the obvious and objective conclusion that the version under consideration does not matter.  Whether big or small, early or final, the music, like much of Bach's, sort of transcends pesky matters like score version or instrumentation.  The musical impact in high-end performances is so significant, its ability to move the listener so profound, and the general neato-ness of the music so self-evident, that any old version will do.

Twenty-five versions will receive a full airing here.  Each will be posted in descending order of relative greatness until, inevitably and ineluctably, the very greatest version known to humanity will be revealed. 

[Todd]

#25

Paavo Järvi's take is unapologetically big 'n' bold, with some sumptuous playing, reminiscent of Robert Shaw's take.  Like that take, ultimate recorded detail sometimes goes AWOL, but that's OK.  The organ bits have color aplenty, and the choral singing compels and Matthias Goerne does his thing.  For me, though, the use of countertenor in the Pie Jesu, even in the form of someone as supremely talented as Philippe Jaroussky, sort of falls flat.  By which I mean it completely falls flat.  Michel Corboz similarly futzes around with the soprano part in one of his recordings, but he and his forces are more compelling in the rest of the work.

[Todd]

#24

The newest kid on the block, Herve Niquet and his small crew deliver light 'n' tight 'n' swift playing and singing.  In terms of execution, it's essentially without flaw.  The singing is superb throughout.  Something's missing, though.  It's austere, but that in itself is not an issue.  No, it's not especially expressive as a whole.  It's almost impatient and rendered cooly slick.  Don't get me wrong, the execution for execution's sake is more than worth hearing, but this here recording is why streaming is so darned nifty. 

[Todd]

#23

It had been a good long while since I last listened to Ernest Ansermet's take.  Now, Ansermet has a couple things at his disposal, namely Suzanne Danco and, especially, Gerard Souzay.  The latter really delivers the magic.  Souzay's voice is so beautiful and gentle, with wonderful vibrato – though some may think too much – that it more or less hypnotizes the listener while he sings.  Danco sounds nice, but she lays on the vibrato, and it sounds like her voice is patched in from a separate session.  She is not maximally utilized.  To the rest of the recording, the tempi are slow, the playing gooey and quasi-grandiose, the overall feel that of an operatic tragedy.  So far, so good.  But then there's the chorus.  I just don't like it.  It's not ugly, per se, but it's not beautiful, either.  It's just blah.  In a choral work, that's a problem.  Part of it comes down to how it was recorded.  Basically, this is the Souzay show, and his singing cannot offset everything else. 

[ritter]

...  But then there's the chorus.  I just don't like it.  It's not ugly, per se, but it's not beautiful, either.  It's just blah.  In a choral work, that's a problem.  Part of it comes down to how it was recorded.  ...

I have had that problem with several Ansermet recordings. The choral contributions are significantly less accomplished than the other elements. A pity.

[Todd]

#22

Danny Boy's turn, with Sheila Armstrong and DFD his soloists.  Big, broad, dynamic, and dramatic, this is red-blooded, full-throated Faure.  The choral singing is fine, and DFD does his thing.  Sheila Armstrong's singing does not really appeal, but it's technically good.  When all is said and done, however, it's really just sort of a robust run through of the work with little lasting impact.

[Todd]

#21

Kazuo Yamada's take on the Requiem sounds deadly serious, formal, and pristinely crafted.  Born in 1912, he comes from that generation of Japanese classical music artists who took their art very seriously and would allow for no tomfoolery with the score, no ridiculous tempi, no nothing out of place.  The result here is austere, almost severe beauty.  That ain't no prob, and in terms of seriousness there are others more serious yet – Giulini, say.  The soloists are good, if not great, and the choral singing sounds fine.  Not one of the greats, but nice enough.  And the sound Yamada gets from the band in the Pie Jesu, yeah, like, nice.

[Todd]

#20

Michel Corboz's last recording of the Requiem eliminates the mistake that plagued his second recording in that he uses a proper soprano, which helps the Pie Jesu in relative terms.  The overall characteristics of this Mirare recording are not too terribly different from the 90s one.  Taut, elegant, elevated, with just the right amount of drama, it's none too shabby.  It does, however, lack juju to the same degree as the flawed earlier recording.  So, at least good.

[Todd]

#19

Dutoit, like so many other conductors in the good old days of major label overproduction, got to use two big name singers, Kiri Te Kanawa and Sherill Milnes, along with his band.  The first thing that one notices is that the slow to slow-ish tempo choices sound slower than their timing suggests due to an aural opacity that pervades the whole undertaking.  It's a big, warm, blended sound, lacking edge and ultimate clarity.  That in itself is no problem,  but the mix of tempo and venue and recording technique are not ideal.  The soloists sound more clear, with Milnes sounding quite dark and more bassy than baritoney, while Te Kanawa sounds lovely if somewhat ice queeny.  That's OK.  The chorus sings nicely throughout, with the slight opacity no hindrance. 

[Todd]

#18

That the Requiem ended up on a recording with the word "secret" in the title represents a triumph of marketing, but all that matters is whether Bolton and crew deliver the goods.  The performance almost seems to be built around Benjamin Appl's voice.  His singing is pure of tone, almost flawless, and light.  That describes the instrumental playing and choral singing, too, not to mention Katja Stuber's singing.  Transparency also pervades the entire undertaking, and so does a, well, Swiss-like precision.  There's much surface beauty to be heard here, but soulful nourishment is in short supply.  It's worth listening to just for the sleek beauty. 

[Todd]

#17

One is all but assured of superb execution in every Marriner recording, and so it goes here.  The dramatic but sleek Introit gives way to a sleeker yet Kyrie.  The choral singing is near or actually perfect, and the entire undertaking radiates aural beauty above all.  Gravitas goes missing a bit, perhaps.  Marriner used high grade soloists and got high grade results there, though especially with Allen, the results are highly extroverted.  That is offset by Sylvia McNair, whose singing is so gorgeous, so gentle, so soothing, that one sort of collapses into a helpless blob while she sings.  It's kind of difficult to assign the proper scientific ranking to this recording.  It lacks that something special that other takes have, but if one just wants to play it and wallow in musical goodness, it's more than up to snuff.

[Todd]

#16

Reliable Jeremy Summerly has produced a good number of very fine recordings in early music, so I figured it was time to give his take on Faure's work a shot.  He presents a hybrid edition, relying on the 1887/88 score with the two later movements tacked on.  Summerly's take is fairly quick, fairly light, more than fairly austere, and boasts good if not world-beating singing for the most part.  The high voices in the choral parts sometimes shine and sometimes misses the mark for me, but overall, this is a good version, but not a fave.

[Todd]

#15

Michel Corboz's second, mid-90s recording of the work is absolutely magnificent in every regard, save one.  The tempi are taut but not rushed.  The sound is elegant and elevated.  It feels dramatic but not overdone.  The organ part is usually subtle and never obtrusive.  The performance engulfs the listener.  Except for the soprano.  Corboz uses a boy rather than a woman, and the entire Pie Jesu is trainwrecked as a result, and the whole work negatively impacted.  The boy can sing, but the voice must be female here.  Must.  It can be no other way.  But for that really rather major boo-boo, this would be one of the very best takes. 

[Todd]

#14

With Chung, Terfel, and Bartoli involved, one is more or less guaranteed a version that emphasizes the theatrical more than the spiritual.  That's what one gets.  And that's perfectly fine.  Theatricality here manifests itself in towering forte passages, with dynamic range to at least equal what Jack Renner achieved elsewhere.  (Gramophone's reviewer kvetched that the dynamic range is too wide.)  The tempi are slow and dramatic, the playing and choral singing beautiful.  Terfel, big of voice and forward sounding in the mix, sings his parts like an aria from some opera where the hero contemplates life itself, like Falstaff looking inward.  Bartoli's tone is somewhat darker than other singers in this part, but of course she does her thing.  If one comes to this recording with appropriate expectations and digging big ol' dynamic swings, it hits the spot.

[Todd]

#13

Quint's take relies on John Rutter's 1984 realization for the score, and Telarc's sonics for everything else.  Sure, James Morris hardly sets the world on fire with his solo singing, and the same holds true for Judith Blegen, and the choral singing, while good, is not the best of the best.  What is best of the best is overall sonic impact.  Right from the get-go, the sound is big, bold, beefy, and beautiful.  It lacks the ultimate clarity and detail of multi-multi-microphone arrays and mixing desk wizardry, but it is right freakin' there, right in front of ya', demanding the listener giddily and greedily devour all that sonic 'n' musical goodness.  On technical points, it don't win; on pure enjoyment points, it nearly do.  Nice.

[Todd]

#12

Here's a recording that popped out at me due to the pairing.  Via Crucis is the most austere, almost severe Liszt composition that I have heard.  Anyone who doubts the seriousness of Abbé Liszt's faith really ought to consider listening to this work.  Denes Varjon, a pianist of no little accomplishment, does his thing well as do the singers.  Only some slightly rough sound, with overloaded patches when streamed, mars the take, and then it doesn't really matter.   The work does not seem a natural pairing for Faure's Requiem, so one must listen to the main work with extra focus.

Turns out the pairing works.  Well, it does when one approaches the work the way Janos Dobra does.  It's austere, emphasizing the text and eschewing excess beauty.  It ends up sort of sounding less like a rarified take than a Rore-fied one.  That is meant as very high praise.  Typically, when I listen, the Sanctus and the Pie Jesu are the big highlights, and of course In Paradisum is sort of the point of work.  Not so much here.  The Offertory is absolutely fantastic, all the more so when the soloist is not the focus.  It has more gravitas than normal.  Somehow or other, and it's difficult to describe why, the shortcomings in this recording don't matter too much.  And those shortcomings are the singers, including the chorus.  While not terrible at all, they don't match up to more famous artists and ensembles.  The singing almost has a rough and ready and high-end amateur feel to it, but that scrappiness pays off when wedded to the conductor's approach.  That platitudinous saying "more than the sum of its parts" applies here.  A surprisingly affecting recording.

[Todd]

#11
 
Lucia Popp.  Yep, Lucia Popp.  This recording includes the redoubtable Lucy sings here, and yet I had not listened to this recording until this survey.  My very bad.  So, like, Davis goes slow, slow, slow in the opening Introitus, creating a combination of etherealness and weightiness of no little interest, and while the tempi speed up, that interpretive combo pervades.  Simon Estes and the choral singers all do fine work.  But really, for me, it's all about Popp, and she delivers.  It sounds like perhaps a little extra reverb may have been added to the mix to make her sound even more like a rich voiced angel than she was.  Precisely as expected, she is the highlight of the recording, and sort of floats above the fray.  The performance as a whole is quite lovely but also restrained, and Davis does excellent work, but the slow tempo doesn't have the last word in static magic.  Still, very good.

[Todd]

#10

Maestro Ozawa leads his Boston band along with Barbara Bonney and Haken Hagegard in a recording that right from the start mixes taut speed and a light on its feet feel with scale and perfect weight.  The splendid RCA sound helps matters out.  The soloists both do excellent work, with Bonney sounding very light, with a soft tone (aided by knob twiddling?), and most pleasing.  The Tanglewood chorus does some fine, fine work in this really nice recording. 

[Todd]

#9

Peter Dijkstra's small band, kick-ass chorus, world class soloist rendition benefits from probably the best overall recorded sound in this survey.  This allows for just the right balance of clarity and weight, which when combined with the snappy overall tempi, leads to supreme refinement married to tension throughout.  It certainly sounds beautiful, but it ain't no pansy version, no sir.  Kondad Jarnot's voice sounds appealing and his delivery is equally blended assertiveness and tenderness, while Sunhae Im's singing is all crystalline beauty. 

[Todd]

#8

As per usual, Celi uses slow tempi, but here they're not so very far away from someone like Plasson.  The main characteristics that define Celi's take is that his is the most sorrowful, the most mournful.  One can imagine this being performed at the funeral for some big French muckety-muck.  Or maybe a Belgian one.  Anyway, it is weighty, rich, detailed, string heavy, with some glorious vibrato in that thar string playing.  Alan Titus does fine work, but here the solo star turn goes to Margaret Price, who sounds sorrowful and soulful, with the strings laying down a billowy, ethereal background for her near lamentation.  The organ in In Paradisum is extra colorful and prominent, but that just sort of adds a little something.