Cherubini: Requiem

2010

“Cherubini's C minor Requiem was admired by both Berlioz and Beethoven, with good reason, since both owed a great deal to a work that isn't far short of a masterpiece. For Beethoven, the music's rugged strength and the force of the statements held much; Berlioz, often mocking and unfair to Cherubini, responded warmly to the use of instrumental colour as part of the actual invention. To oversimplify, if Christoph Spering and his Cologne artists (Opus 111) give a more colourful, 'Berliozian' performance, Matthew Best and the Corydon Singers (Hyperion) respond to the 'Beethovenian' aspect of the music. Of course, there's much more to it than that. Both are excellent performances.
So is the present one. Certainly it has more of an emotional charge in the 'Dies irae' than Spering's which, once the trump has sounded, gathers the voices with nervous intensity rather than the urgent drama that both Best and Fasolis discover. Best and Fasolis also produce great vigour for the 'Quam olim Abrahae' fugue. No one can make very much of the Sanctus, a surprisingly weak movement; all respond sensitively to the strange 'Pie Jesu', Best and Fasolis with rather sharper definition of phrasing.
All three open with the tremendous Marchefunèbre, another piece that inspired Berlioz when he came to write his Hamlet funeral march.
Excellent as the new performance is, those who acquired Best, in particular, can rest content.”

20th August 2000

“Cherubini's supporters counter the indifference with which he is regarded by pointing out that Beethoven claimed to prefer the requiem on this disc to Mozart's. Few would agree, but Cherubini's two requiems are certainly among his most lasting memorials. The earlier one is coupled here with his Marche funèbre, which kicks off dramatically with blows on the gong and timpani. ...fine performances all round, poised and tranquil in the requiem's Introitus, building to a furious Dies irae, and subsiding to a serene conclusion.”