Francis Poulenc - Stabat Mater; Sept Répons des Ténèbres (Daniel Reuss)

Information

Composer: Francis Poulenc

• (01) Sept Répons des Ténèbres
• (08) Stabat Mater

Carolyn Sampson, soprano
Cappella Amsterdam
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
Estonian National Symphony Orchestra
Daniel Reuss, conductor

Date: 2014
Label: Harmonia Mundi
http://www.harmoniamundi.com/#!/albums/1938

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Review

The comparative rarity here is the Sept Répons de Ténèbres that Poulenc wrote in 1961 to a commission from Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. The music manifests the familiar Poulenc fingerprints of perfumed harmony, sensual melody and abrupt cadences but there is a fiercer, more troubled personality at work here as well. The dark import of the Tenebrae Responsories seems to have struck a particular chord with Poulenc nearing the end of his life, and here the chromatic twists in, for instance, the ‘Caligaverunt oculi mei a fletu meo’ (My eyes are darkened by my tears) suggest an anguish in the face of mortality that is both powerful and poignant. Poulenc wanted all male voices for the Sept Répons, with (as in Bernstein’s soon-to-be-composed Chichester Psalms) a boy treble as a central protagonist, but here Carolyn Sampson eloquently expresses the isolation and apprehension of the solo line, and the mixed voices of the Cappella Amsterdam and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Reuss sensitively and dramatically project the sombre, fearful, abject world in which Poulenc finds himself.

Theirs is also a fine performance of the Stabat mater. Again, Poulenc was confronted with death, that of his friend Christian Bérard, but grief, serenity and tenderness coalesce to a greater degree here than in the Sept Répons des Ténèbres. The choir and orchestra rise fully to the eruptions of emotion in the ‘Quis est homo’ but are no less compelling in quiet moments of contemplation.

-- Geoffrey Norris, Gramophone

More reviews:
BBC Music Magazine  PERFORMANCE: **** / RECORDING: *****
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Apr14/Poulenc_stabat_HMC902149.htm
http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/May14/Poulenc_stabat_HMC902149.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/mar/30/poulenc-stabat-mater-reuss-review
https://www.audaud.com/poulenc-stabat-mater-seven-tenebrae-responses-carolyn-sampson-sop-cappella-amsterdam-estonian-philharmonic-ch-choir-estonian-national-ch-orch-daniel-ruess-harmonia-mundi/
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Poulenc-Stabat-Mater-Repons-Tenebres/dp/B00H30JK1U

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Francis Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963) was a French composer and pianist. A member of group Les Six, Poulenc had a reputation, particularly in his native country, as a humorous, lightweight composer, and his religious music was often overlooked. During the 21st century more attention has been given to his serious works. Among his best-known compositions are Trois mouvements perpétuels (piano suite, 1919), Les biches (ballet, 1923), Concert champêtre (1928), Organ Concerto (1938), Dialogues des Carmélites (opera, 1957), and Gloria (for soprano, choir and orchestra, 1959).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Poulenc

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Daniel Reuss (born 2 July 1961 in Leiden) is a Dutch conductor. Reuss studied with Barend Schuurman at the Rotterdam Conservatory. In 1982, he founded the Oude Muziek Koor Arnhem. From 1990 until 1997, he conducted the Dutch Student Chamber Choir. In 1990, he became director of Cappella Amsterdam. From 2003 until 2007 he was chief conductor of the RIAS Kammerchor in Berlin, with whom he recorded a number of successful CDs. From 2008 to 2013 he was the artistic director of the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir. From 2015 Reuss is chief conductor of Ensemble Vocal Lausanne.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Reuss
http://www.danielreuss.com/

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