Choir Of St. John's College, Cambridge - Duruflé: Complete Choral Works (2000)

The Duruflé and Fauré Requiems are often spoken of in the same breath, probably because, besides being by French composers, both are liturgical and conciliatory without containing much dramatic anger or angst. The Duruflé was premiered in 1947 and in the past 20 years has caught on to become a favorite of both amateur and professional choirs. It exists in two versions, one with orchestra, the other with organ accompaniment. It is the latter that is presented on this new Nimbus CD. The performance, led by Christopher Robinson, suffers from too many dramatic interjections that tend to disrupt the smooth flow of the music. Both the men and boys in the chorus sing louder passages with a forced sound that gets in the way of the music, and the tempos are the slowest of any performance I have heard. The earlier recording from this same choir, conducted by its previous music director, George Guest, and available on a Double Decca release at modest cost, finds the choir much more relaxed, producing beautiful sounds that seem to suit the nature of the composition. Unlike the Nimbus recording, which features an adequate, earthly soprano soloist, the Decca offers a heavenly boy treble, which works better for me, given the devotional character of the music. And Decca’s baritone soloist, Christopher Keyte, is the best on CD. Robinson’s performance of the motets is a little more relaxed, but also is outclassed by Guest’s radiant version. The Nimbus sound is good but its recording team has failed to capture the acoustic space of St. John’s Chapel as successfully as the Decca engineers. For a recording of the orchestral version of this beautiful Requiem, you can’t go wrong with Robert Shaw and his superb Atlanta musicians.