Durufle Requiem, Op. 9. Felicity Palmer (mez) John Shirley-Quirk (bar) London Symphony Chorus and Orchestra; Westminster Cathedral Boys Choir / Richard Hickox.

Argo digital (Full price) (LP) ZRDL1009 (Cassette) KZRDC1009. Recorded in association with G. P. & J. Baker Ltd.

For those who love this work but feel that the occasionally luscious richness of the orchestral version is a little too sinfully indulgent for a funeral, Hickox's account may be a welcome compromise between the austere purity of Ledger on HMV (using the original, organ-accompanied version of the score) and the frank luxuriance of Andrew Davis (CBS). Like Davis, Hickox uses sopranos for the top line of his chorus for the greater part of the work, but their voices are so 'straight' and penetrating that I was completely convinced, until assured otherwise, that he had used trebles throughout (Davis's pure-voiced but warmer-toned sopranos are much less deceptive). This and the quite biting edge Hickox allows his strings and brass at the few moments of obvious drama in the score tend to make the richness more digestible. Which does not mean to say that he secularizes the work (no more, at least, than Durufle himself did by orchestrating it) and the engineers have given him a spaciously ecclesiastical acoustic—a positive gain when the semi-chorus of trebles appear, magically remote, towards the end of the "Libera me"; rather less of an advantage elsewhere sometimes, when the opposite ends of the chorus seem to be barely within hailing distance of each other. Felicity Palmer is soberly intense in the "Pie Jesu", John Shirley-Quirk rather stressfully so in his solos, though no more so, and rather more secure than Davis's Siegmund Nimsgern (interesting to compare both with the much lighter-voiced Stephen Roberts, who is quite effortless even in the urgent music of the "Domine, Jesu Christe"—but then he, in Ledger's account, only has an organ to contend with).

For my taste, Hickox is a touch brisk in the "In Paradisum" and the fuller-scored passages sound slightly dense compared to Davis's always luminous textures. Hickox's lower voices show a little strain once or twice, notably in the "Libera me", but it is a fine and loving performance that can be recommended to anyone who wants the orchestral version but prefers at least the convincing semblance of boys' voices on the soprano line. I personally am beginning to hear disquieting overtones of Hollywood (at the first allegro in the "Domine, Jesu Christe"), even of Respighi (at the "Hosanna") in the orchestral version, and shall opt for the chaste radiance, the ethereal clarity of Ledger's account (unless, that is, someone would care to record the third version of the Requiem, for chamber orchestra?

MEO