Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 (Requiem)

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Norrington's approach is pensive, sober and funereal-but it's so well paced that the sense of inevitability underlines man's mortality, and the outbursts when they do come are more effective... — Andrew McGregor, bbc.co.uk, 8th May 2006 More…

Release Date: 1st Apr 2006
Catalogue No: HAEN93131
Label: Hänssler
Length: 87 minutes

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December 2006

SACD Choice

Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 (Requiem)

Work length1:27:05

$21.00

$27.10

Toby Spence
SWR Vokalensemble, Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR, Leipzig Radio Choir
Sir Roger Norrington

Requiem et Kyrie

Track length11:45

$3.00

$3.85

Dies irae

Track length12:50

$3.00

$3.85

Quid sum miser

Track length3:07

$1.00

$1.30

Rex tremendae

Track length6:01

$1.00

$1.30

Quaerens me

Track length5:11

$1.00

$1.30

Lacrimosa

Track length9:59

$2.00

$2.60

Offertoire

Track length9:32

$2.00

$2.60

Hostias

Track length3:18

$1.00

$1.30

Sanctus

Track length10:22

$3.00

$3.85

Agnus Dei

Track length15:00

$4.00

$5.15

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Reviews

8th May 2006

Norrington's approach is pensive, sober and funereal-but it's so well paced that the sense of inevitability underlines man's mortality, and the outbursts when they do come are more effective for their comparative restraint...a reminder that the first performance was in church, not on a concert hall stage.

"Truly it was of frightening greatness," wrote Berlioz after the Requiem 's première. The massed timpani of the "Tuba mirum" produced an "indescribable shock". The chief priest wept uncontrollably, while one of the choral singers suffered a nervous breakdown.

Thankfully, there seems to have been no such casualty among the singers in this "live" performance from Stuttgart. The rich, ample acoustics of the Beethovensaal give full value to Berlioz's vast spatial effects, most spectacularly the four brass bands that herald the timpani onslaught in the "Tuba mirum". Yet Norrington's concern for clarity of line and articulation, and the carefully judged balances, mean that we hear far more than usual of Berlioz's brilliant and bizarre orchestral detail.

Norrington's dramatic urgency, allied to choral singing of thrilling body and bite, make the apocalyptic movements duly overwhelming. No less moving is the choir's luminous delicacy in the "Quid sum miser" and "Quaerens me" - music of Cistercian purity and austerity - while Toby Spence brings a calm, rapt beauty to the cruelly high solo in the "Sanctus". A magnificent achievement, to be set alongside Colin Davis's recordings of this awesome work.

Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 (Requiem)

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