One of the finest classic versions

Discography Fauré's Requiem is somewhat bloated. No doubt the brevity of the work relative to other masses phonebook dead, non morbid climate that emerges, and almost chamber color explain such popularity and therefore the fact that all leaders are tempted by a record .

To complicate matters, there are three different editions. Like most other leaders interpretations, Carlo Maria Giulini opts for the 3rd edition of "concert" whose orchestration is probably not completely Fauré, but one of his students, it must be said, did nothing to alleviate the score (violin in the Sanctus, timpani in the Libera Me, although some discrete wood ...). The English composer John Rutter, himself author beautiful Requiem and Magnificat, rediscovered in 1980 the original of the hand of Fauré that was recorded especially by Philippe Herreweghe in 1988.

Yes, but the Italian maestro knows beyond all this to offer us a light and bright interpretation. Relatively slow, the music flows gently: Mass farewell rather than divine wrath. The Philharmonia restores a balance between the desks, a balance that could suffer from the omnipresent bass strings. Finally, organ, sometimes inaudible to the disc (Agnus Dei), creeps with glee in every part where it operates. Copper Harmony knows how to show its power precisely so without pathos that would harm the desired clarity.
Kathleen Battle and especially Andreas Schmitt (largely unknown) fit perfectly respecting their roles diction "little opera" desired by the composer.

Undoubtedly one of the finest classic versions which has never left the catalog since 1986.
Note that:
Philippe Herreweghe has signed in 2002 a very difficult new version of this edition, notably with a little more this harmony (clarinet in the Pie Jesu).
I also remain committed to the delicacy and fervor recording Louis Frémaux in 1977 and also to the historical engraving of Andrew V. Cluytens with Los Angeles and D. Fischer-Dieskau in 1963 (a Sulpician certainly nothing)