Here's almost two and a half hours of bliss. These are recordings to set aside for the time when, as the prayer says, 'the busy world is hushed'. Asked to characterise Fauré's and Duruflé's Requiems as compared with others, we might suggest words such as 'delicate', 'meditative', 'undramatic'; but that last would be a mistake. These performances certainly do not go out of their way to 'be' dramatic or anything else other than faithful to the music, but one is struck by the power exercised by those rare moments that rise to a forte and above.
The choir is surely at its best, the trebles with their fine clear-cut, distinctive tone, the tenors (so important in the Fauré) graceful and refined without being precious, the altos exceptionally good, and only the basses just occasionally and briefly plummy or obtrusive in some way.
The Poulenc works further test a choir's virtuosity yet in the extremely difficult Mass, the choir seems secure, and in the Salve Regina they catch the necessary tenderness. The treble soloists sing beautifully, Christopher Keyte dramatises almost too convincingly in Duruflé's 'tremens factus', and Benjamin Luxon, his production less even, builds finely in Fauré's Libera me. These recordings have a vividness, certainly in the choral sound, that modern recordings generally lack.