FAURE: Requiem, Op. 48; VERDI: Quattro pezzi sacri – Janet Baker, soprano/ Gerard Souzay, baritone/Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini – BBC Legends

by | Nov 9, 2007 | Classical Reissue Reviews | 0 comments

FAURE: Requiem, Op. 48; VERDI: Quattro pezzi sacri – Janet Baker, soprano/ Gerard Souzay, baritone/Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra/Carlo Maria Giulini

BBC Legends  BBCL 4221-2,  78:43 (Distrib. Koch) ****:

Recorded in concert at Royal Festival Hall, London, 30 April 1962, both Faure’s dusky Requiem and Verdi’s antique Four Sacred Pieces find solemn, rarified, dignified, and extremely detailed performances under the great Italian maestro Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005).  The Offertoire of Faure and Ave Maria of Verdi seem to share a common, valedictory quiet and poised archaism of sound. For me, it is always at the exquisite Sanctus–its soft strings, harp, and lulling repose–that Faure’s splendid, modal harmonies and serpentine melodic line–in the manner of Berlioz–open up and embrace my sensibilities. Gerard Souzay brings a restrained, nasal poignancy to Faure’s score, while the Philharmonia strings and obbligato organ provide a halo of strings around his plaints. For the Libera me, Souzay adds distinctly agonized hues to his characterization.
 
For the intimate Pie Jesu, we have the burnished soprano of Janet Baker, alternately throaty and exalted. The subtly delicious Agnus Dei has the male voices mezzo-piano, a luscious sound that swells into a voluptuous, alchemical wave interwoven with strings, female choir, and organ. Trumpets and chorale jar us with apocalyptic visions assuaged by a sense of mercy. Magic bubbles in the organ and high sopranos for the In paradisium, perhaps something of the feeling those who performed with Giulini experienced when under the gaze of those intensely modest, Italian, blue eyes.

Verdi’s Ave Maria opens the Four Sacred Pieces with a sweet mystery of homogeneous sound connoisseurs may cut with a knife. The nuance of coloration owes as much to Giulini’s way with Debussy as his familiarity with the Verdi style. Collectors will relish the graduated meditation of the Laudi alla Vergine Maria; this after a Stabat Mater of blissful stillness. Passing references to Aida and to the Manzoni Requiem abound. The first of the big, crashing chords from the Te Deum immediately yields to a series of hushed chords just as rife wit dramatic impact. Massive contrapuntal passages alternate with antiphons of utmost quiet, each molded by Giulini’s tender hand, responsive and lyrical; always the balance between the religious pietist and the rhetorically operatic resounds with equal conviction. Once again, Janet Baker comes to the aural fore, answered by celestial harmonies of the first order. Quite a sonic document on every level, not suffering from its 45-year age.

— Gary Lemco

 

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