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Discontinued and re-issued under Virgin Classics 2002 (see next disc)

 

 "Simon Keenlyside is the ideal baritone soloist" Gramophone

 

Title

Fauré Requiem, etc.

Composer

Gabriel Fauré, Jean Jules Roger-Ducasse and Pierre Villette

Conductor

David Hill

 

 

Performers

Nancy Argenta (soprano)

Simon Keenlyside (baritone)

Stephen Farr (organ)

Bournemouth Sinfonietta

Winchester Cathedral Choir

 

 

Contents

Fauré: Cantique de Jean Racine,Op. 11. Requiem,Op. 48.

 

Roger-Ducasse: 3 Motets.

 

Villette: O magnum mysterium. O salutaris hostia.

 

 

Label

Virgin Classics - discontinued

Code

545318-2 

Released

 1998

Number of discs

 

ASIN

 

 

 

What the critics say

 

Reviewed by John Steane for Gramophone, March 2003.

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/gramofilereview.asp?reviewID=9808076&mediaID=173903&issue=Reviewed%3A+Gramophone+8%2F1998

 

“…The Requiem particularly wants a choir with good sopranos (or trebles, as here) and tenors, and Winchester is strong in both. The alto-tenor passage at the start of the “Offertoire” is beautifully done. Nancy Argenta sustains the “Pie Jesu” well, and Simon Keenlyside is the ideal baritone soloist. There is sensitive playing too, the brass fully effective (this is the 1893 version, edited by Rutter) without too much assertion, and the subtle instrumentation of the Agnus Dei is beautifully brought out. In the unaccompanied motets which complete the programme the choir deploy their customary intelligence and fine tone, their outstanding treble soloist, Kenan Burrows, doing excellent work for Jean Roger-Ducasse whose three Motets (1911) move, each in turn, to a well-placed climax. These ‘fill-in’ pieces might even have gone so far as to convert a somewhat mixed report into a more decisively favourable one, but I think on the whole one is better off with Faure’s Messe basse (Pople), Durufle’s motets (Marlow) or Saint-Saens, Debussy and Ravel (Gardiner). “