Gabriel Fauré - Sacred Vocal Works & Requiem (Ivor Bolton)

Information

Composer: Gabriel Fauré

• (01) Psaume CXXXVI. Super flumina Babylonis
• (02) Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11
• (03) Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville
• (08) La Passion: Prélude
• (09) Messe de Requiem, Op. 48

Benjamin Appl, baritone
Katja Stuber, soprano
Balthasar-Neumann-Chor

Basel Symphony Orchestra
Ivor Bolton, conductor

Date: 2020
Label: Sony Classical
https://www.sonyclassical.de/alben/releases-details/the-secret-faure-3-sacred-vocal-works

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Review

This album concludes a trio of releases from the Sinfonieorchester Basel under Ivor Bolton, exploring lesser-known stretches of Gabriel Fauré's output. The present works mostly fit the "secret" descriptor. There's a recently discovered world premiere that's lovely: the Prélude to a set of incidental music for a play called La Passion. The music was long lost, but the play starred Sarah Bernhardt, and the six-minute Prélude is not in any sense of throwaway. The rest of the music is choral, and most of it is similarly obscure. The Messe des pêcheurs de Villerville (Mass of the Fishers of Villerville) of 1881 was a collaboration between Fauré and his student André Messager, written for a benefit concert for a fishermen's charitable organization. One can tell which movements came from Fauré's pen (the Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei), but it's a situation similar to Mozart's Requiem, K. 626, where the dying Mozart had a degree of input into his student Süssmayr's contributions that nobody has even now quite determined for sure. It's a light work, even though it's a mass, and Bolton and the Balthasar-Neuman-Chor do well not to put more into it than is there. The early Super flumina Babylonis already has the characteristic Fauré flavor. Best of all is that listeners get a work that is decidedly not a secret, the Requiem, Op. 48, and it's nicely performed, with fine choral work and distinctive solos from baritone Benjamin Appl and soprano Katja Stuber. This is going to be an essential find for Fauré lovers.

-- James Manheim, AllMusic

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Gabriel Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style. His music has been described as linking the end of Romanticism with 20th century modernism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Faur%C3%A9

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Ivor Bolton (born 17 May 1958 in Blackrod, England) is an English conductor and harpsichordist. He studied at Clare College, Cambridge (1976–80) and was conducting scholar at the Royal College of Music (1980–81). He later trained as a répétiteur at the National Opera Studio and was appointed conductor of Schola Cantorum of Oxford. Bolton was principal conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (1994–96), and Chief Conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg  (2004–16). He is currently music director of the Teatro Real (Madrid, since 2015) and chief conductor of the Basel SO (since 2016).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivor_Bolton
https://ivorbolton.com/

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