Messe de Requiem

A collaboration between Edgar Fruitier, classical music expert and collector, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte and Cardinal Marc Ouellet, this 6 CD collection of sacred music is a classical's music lover's dream.

The New York Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Zubin Mehta and Lorin Maazel are among the distinguished Berlioz interpreters on hand as you behold the immortal Symphonie Fantastique and hours of other renowned works by this immensely influential orchestral innovator. Also: Harold in Italy; Tristia for Chorus and Orchestra; Les Troyens: Prelude; Roman Carnival Overture; King Lear Overture for Orchestra; Beatrice et Benedict: Overture; Requiem (Grande Messe Des Morts) for Tenor, Chorus and Orchestra; Veni Creator: Motet for 3 Voices and Chorus; Symphonie Funebre et Triomphale for Band, Strings and Chorus Ad Lib , and more!

The choral works of Duruflé, like his organ works, are small in number but beautifully crafted. Frequently written and rewritten until he was completely satisfied, he was a composer who rethought and re-configured his music right up to the moment he had to let go of it. Often described as a man out of step with his times, his pieces look back to Gregorian chant and plainsong at a time when the musical life of his home city of Paris was steeped in radical new compositional ideas – a testament perhaps to Duruflé’s enduring love of France’s choral heritage.

Cherubini’s major sacred works are generally quite marvelous. The two Requiems have a distinguished history on disc. Toscanini recorded the C minor, Markevitch the D minor, and my colleague David Vernier praised the recent release of the C minor piece on Carus. They are both truly excellent: grave and austere, but also dynamic, moving, and well worth hearing. The same is certainly true of the large-scale Masses: the Missa solemnis in D minor and E major and the Mass in F are especially memorable. Their grandeur never strains for effect and is always leavened with the composer’s Italian lyricism. Cherubini may not have been well-treated by history, but he knew what he was doing.