Classical Candor: Duruflé: Requiem; Poulenc: Four Lenten Motets (CD Review)

Duruflé: Requiem; Poulenc: Four Lenten Motets (CD Review)

by Karl Nehring

The Choir of Trinity College Cambridge; Harrison Cole, organ; Stephen Layton, conductor. Hyperion CDA68436

I will freely admit to knowing very little about the French composer Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986). To be honest, until studying the CD booklet and doing a quick bit of supplementary research, I had no idea he was so relatively modern, living until 1986. And although I am not a huge organ buff, I certainly recognize the names of the famous organists Pierre Cochereau, Jean Guillou, and Marie-Claire Alain – all of whom were students of Duruflé. However, although I knew very little about Duruflé the composer (pictured below), I was familiar with one of his compositions, because his Requiem was sometimes paired on recordings along with the Requiem of his fellow Frenchman, Gabriel Fauré. An outstanding example of that pairing is the Telarc release featuring Robert Shaw leading the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Whereas the Telarc recording of the Duruflé features the full scoring for chorus, organ, and orchestra, this new Hyperion release is of the version sans orchestra. Given Duruflé’s reputation as a master of the organ, however, one should not be surprised to hear the prominent role given to the king of the instruments in this performance. From the rich bass notes that open the piece through the chords that accompany solo voices, Harrison Cole’s organ plays a prominent role in the proceedings. If anything, this version with organ sounds more like an actual requiem than as the version which also includes the orchestra. The latter, although undeniably beautiful, sounds more of a concert piece. The rich, full-bodied sound of the choir combined with the powerful sound of the organ make this recording of the Requiem one to be treasured.

Also appearing on this release are Four Lenten Motets by another French composer of the twentieth century, Francis Poulenc (1899-1962). These are sung a cappella, with a leaner, cleaner, slightly drier sense of expression than the Duruflé, yet clear and direct. The CD booklet mentions that Poulenc (pictured right) had sought out some compositional advice from the composer Charles Koechlin (1867-1960), who proved to be a “very open-minded teacher, allowing sharp, grating dissonances as long as they could be expressively validated, and a combination of suavity and abrasiveness was to be a hallmark of Poulenc’s vocal writing during the last twenty-five years of his life. In each of these Lenten motes he tends to support the beginning and end of his phrases with a consonant chord, but on the way from one to the other he takes us through some agonizing sounds, as well as some seductive ones.” More the latter than the former, to be sure, is what you will find here.

All in all, what we have here is another first-class release from the good folks at Hyperion. Excellent performances, superb engineering, informative liner notes with text, attractive cover art – the whole package exudes quality and earns a solid recommendation.

Further Thoughts: On Poulenc and Jazz Cats

I’ve been intending for a while now to post some thoughts about the relationship between classical music and jazz. I’ve mentioned before that jazz can be viewed in some respects as a kind of chamber music; however, today I would like to throw something else out there -- -- the influence of classical music on jazz musicians. As it turns out, at the time I was listening to the Hyperion recording I reviewed above, I was just finishing the book Three Shades of Blue by James Kaplan (review forthcoming) which covers the lives of jazz giants Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Bill Evans (the key figures responsible for the seminal jazz album Kind of Blue) and mentions how all three were influenced by classical music.

Then, just was I gathering my thoughts and going over my notes in preparation for writing my review of the Duruflé/Poulenc release, lo and behold, what did I happen to see on X (formerly Twitter) but this March 25 post from the estimable San Francisco-based critic Richard Scheinin: This great 2000 interview with Jackie McLean is full of surprises... e.g., he describes early days with Miles & Sonny -- but also how he stole harmonies from Poulenc for "A Ballad for Doll." Scheinin then includes a link to the interview, in which the found the famed alto saxophonist Jackie McLean (1931-2006) in conversation with a musician from a younger generation, the innovative composer and saxophonist Steve Lehman (b. 1978).

I’ve included below the portion of the interview in which the two musicians discuss the influence of classical composers upon jazz musicians. This is a theme that I will be exploring at greater depth in future postings.

Steve Lehman: If I asked you who some of your influences were as a composer, would some stuff come to mind at all?

Jackie McLean: OK. Alright. It would be like, I guess…it’s a funny combination of people whose music I can get a feel for. Thelonious would be one of them. Thelonious, Tadd Dameron, kind of, and then a little later, Gil Evans, his interpretations of some of that harmony and stuff. But all of them come from Duke, I learned that later on, you know, that they all come from Duke. But I had never thought of Duke as my inspiration for writing. I mean, I always loved his stuff. The more I learn about music the more amazed I am at what he was doing so early.

SL: His concept.

JM: Yeah, you know. But for the time that I came along, it was Thelonious, and then Bud and Bird together, kind of their compositional style.

SL: Stuff like “Quadrangle,” the opening where it’s two horns and just a drummer, or maybe just drums and bass, it made me think a little bit of like the beginning to “Ko-Ko.”

JM: “Ko-Ko.” Right. Yeah, those kind of things. And then of course, there’s some harmony that I draw from, like for instance, on that piece that I did…. I think it was (on the chord changes to) “Star Eyes” on “Capuchin Swing,” on the bridge, I stole that right out from Bach: a direct line from him.

SL: Wow. Another thing that made me think of possible Classical influences…the chord, the voicing for “A Fickle Sonance,” that stacked harmony. Or is that something you just heard?

JM: No, I think I just heard that. But I did steal from Poulenc on “A Ballad for Doll.”

SL: On Jackie’s Bag.

JM: Yeah, the second to last section, that harmony at the end of the melody, those chords coming down I took from Francis Poulenc, a French composer that I liked a lot.

I can’t explain what it is about him that I like. He’s got a little sense of humor or something in his classical concept.

SL: He’s hard to categorize.

JM: Yeah [laughs].

SL: Because, there’s definitely some, like you said, humor. And he also, I feel like if you look at when the piece was written, and then you hear the thing, it makes you feel like it would have been much later.

JM: Yeah. He’s quite an incredible guy. A lot of people don’t like him.

SL: That’s true.

JM: You know. And I can’t help but feel…I can’t understand it. It’s something about his writing that really gets me, you know?

SL: Yeah. Yeah. I haven’t heard that much of it.

JM: And then of course there’s all the other beautiful things. The whole idea of the word beauty as it fits in music, of something that’s beautiful to your ear, without having to put them in a category of Jazz or Classical. Take “Romeo & Juliet” by Tchaikovsky. Miles, I always admired something in Miles’s playing because Miles heard all these things, you know. He quoted a lot of beautiful melodies.

SL: From Western Classical music?

JM: Yeah. Oh yeah.

SL: OK. I didn’t know that.

JM: Oh yeah, man. All of those influences, you know?

SL: And what about, I know you mentioned Stravinsky?

JM: Oh, well of course. Yeah.

SL: That goes without saying.

JM: Yeah, and Bartok, you know, those guys. And there’s another guy that I liked a lot, Alec Wilder. This guy really touches me, man.

SL: The tunes you wrote in the early 50s, they all have such a modern feel to them.

JM: Uh huh.

SL: You know, “Dr. Jackle,” “Little Melonae,” even this tune on that album with George Wallington…"Snakes.”

JM: “Snakes,” yeah. Well, that was after I had listened to Stravinsky and them cats.

John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.

Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Duruflé: Requiem; Poulenc: Four Lenten Motets (CD Review)

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"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa