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ED2021 Music Reviews
Cathedral Choir Concert: Fauré Requiem (St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral Choir)
By Louise Rodgers | Published on Sunday 22 August 2021
For once Gabriel Fauré’s gorgeous ‘Requiem’ was upstaged in this programme of lovely French sacred music by César Franck’s ‘Panis Anglicus’. It was perfectly ethereal, truly “a still small voice” floating through the lofty cathedral. Louis Vierne’s pleading ‘Kyrie’ from ‘Messe Solennelle’ was sung with the confidence and surety of those who knew that, as members of one of the UK’s best regarded choirs, they would be heard! The ‘Requiem’, today accompanied by the organ, was a pleasing mixture of contrasting moods and disciplined musical textures delicately sung until the singers were required to express the drama of ‘Libera Me’ with its account of anguish, terror and uncertainty, before the singers entered paradise with the calm ‘In Paradisium’ and its promise of eternal rest.
St Mary’s Cathedral, run ended.
tw rating 4/5 [Louise Rodgers]