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.