Berlioz: Grande Messe des Morts, Op. 5 (Requiem)

Sir Colin Davis is a revered Berlioz expert and his LSO live Berlioz recordings have been one of the most widely acclaimed series’ of classical recordings of recent years and collected numerous awards, including two Grammy Awards for Les Troyens.

The release of the monumental Grande Messe des morts marks the completion of this cycle and further confirms Sir Colin’s status as one of the greatest living conductors of Berlioz’s music.

Recorded in St Paul’s Cathedral, a fitting acoustic for the work, the London Symphony Orchestra opened the 50th anniversary of the City of London Festival with the requiem, joined by English lyric tenor Barry Banks and two of London’s finest choirs, the London Symphony Chorus and London Philharmonic Choir.

Grand Messe des Morts is a popular Berlioz creation, yet remains a rare and special treat. A requiem whose text derives from the traditional Latin Requiem Mass, it was composed, uniquely, by a man with no firm religious belief. Throughout the piece there is an extreme variation of dynamics. Poignant, reflective music is contrasted with four blazing brass ensembles, ensuring a very powerful and grand listening experience.

The Greek-born Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896–1960) was incredibly gifted – his photographic memory allowed him to conduct without a score in concert and also in rehearsal! After studies in Athens, Brussels and Berlin, he took various posts in Greece. In 1930, Mitropoulos played the solo part in Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No.3 with the Berlin Philharmonic and conducted the work from the keyboard, becoming the first modern musician to do so. He made his US debut in 1936 and went on to become principal conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (1937–1949) and then music director of the New York Philharmonic (1951–1957), where he was eventually succeeded by Leonard Bernstein. He expanded the repertoire of the NYPO and championed Mahler’s symphonies in particular. Mitropoulos was also a major figure at New York’s Metropolitan Opera House and became its principal conductor in 1954. He died in Milan aged 64 rehearsing Mahler’s Symphony No.3.

In the mid-1950s, Mitropoulos frequently visited Cologne to perform with the Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, whose broadcasts have been well documented by ICA Classics. Releases include Mitropoulos’s last ever performance: a compelling account of Mahler’s Symphony No.3 (ICAC5021) which was awarded the prestigious Toblacher Komponierhäuschen International Record Prize in 2011.

Mitropoulos conducted Berlioz’s massive Requiem with its chorus of over 200 voices and offstage brass at the Salzburg Festival on 15 August 1956. This Cologne performance followed on 26 August 1956.

This ICA release is the first official recording using the original WDR master tapes. The sound from the 1956 tapes is incredible by any standards.

The tenor soloist in the Sanctus is the young Nicolai Gedda.

The performance is contained on one CD running for over 82 minutes.

The first in a new series of releases from the world-renowned conductor Paul McCreesh and his Gabrieli Consort. Called Winged Lion (the symbol of Venice and of St Mark, as well as the Gabrieli Consort), the label will release recordings of Renaissance and Baroque repertoire, as well as large-scale 19th-and 20th-century oratorio, including on the near horizon, Howells’ Requiem Recorded in Poland as part of the Wratislava Cantans Festival (of which McCreesh is artistic director) this staggering performance of Berlioz’s ‘Grand Mass for the Dead’ is produced by a force of over 400 performers – drawn from the Gabrieli Consort and Players, the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and students from Chetham’s School of Music.

Future releases with McCreesh will include Mendelssohn’s Elijah [with Simon Keenlyside] , Haydn’s The Seasons, Britten’s War Requiem and a re-recording of their famed disc ‘A Venetian Coronation’, about which Gramophone had said: “Without doubt, this is one of the finest records of Italian Renaissance polyphony to appear for a long time”. The year also marks the ensemble’s 30th anniversary, and the 400th anniversary of the death of Giovanni Gabrieli whose music, along with that of Andrea Gabrieli, features on the recording.

Founded in 1982 by artistic director Paul McCreesh, the Gabrieli Consort & Players are world-renowned interpreters of great choral and instrumental repertoire, spanning from the Renaissance to the present day. Their performances encompass virtuosic a cappella programmes, mould-breaking reconstructions of music for historical events and major works from the oratorio tradition. With Paul McCreesh, the Gabrielis are regular visitors to the world’s most prestigious concert halls and festivals and have built a large and distinguished discography.

This issue brings together Berlioz’s greatest symphony – the fantastique – and grandest choral work. The former was inspired by his wish to impress the actress, Harriet Smithson, with whom he had become infatuated seeing her as Juliet as well as Hamlet’s Ophelia. He invoked her in all five movements by employing a theme – an “idée fixe” – in this autobiographical work which has become not only well known and extremely popular. The “Grande Messe des Morts” or Requiem requires such enormous forces to make its full effect that performances are necessarily rare events. With the main orchestra and chorus occupying the centre Berlioz employs brass bands to the left, right, behind and even behind the conductor giving the Tuba mirum section in the Dies Irae a spectacular effect on the listener. Parts of the Requiem, however, are handled with extreme delicacy thus when the full forces come together their impact is even more thrilling. André Previn and his London Symphony Orchestra clearly revel in the opportunities offered by both works; the Requiem, with the London Philharmonic Choir, was recorded in the vast space of Walthamstow Town Hall to imitate the vast acoustic space of “Les Invalides” in Paris where it was first performed.

Paul Groves is the tenor soloist in this performance of this huge choral work. The work was first performed in 1837 with a choir of 210, though Berlioz would have preferred “seven or eight hundred”.

Digital recording made by Denon. This release is available in Europe only.

Booklet essay and sung texts.

‘Haunted by the absence of God’ is how the Berlioz biographer David Cairns described the Grande Messe des morts. Written at a time and in a country where there was no place for God after the Revolution, it is a work of genuine mourning and high drama. In 1837 Berlioz was commissioned by the French Interior Ministry to write something that could be used for major public ceremonies. He had already composed a Messe solenelle in 1824, and he turned to this work for both material and inspiration. The resulting Requiem is one of the largest religious works of all time – and in length compares with Verdi’s Requiem and Britten’s War Requiem. Berlioz, like Bruckner, saw his work scored for massive choral and instrumental forces, as almost architectural in structure. He certainly wanted to fill every possible part of the cathedral or church with sound. This remarkable work looks back as well as forwards – the influence of past masters such as Gossec and Cherubini hovers over the Requiem, but there is also a break with tradition. This is a deeply personal work.It is violent, frightening, and often uncomfortable. Berlioz wrote, ‘The poetry of the Prose des morts so intoxicated and exalted me that nothing presented itself to my mind with any clarity: my head was seething, I felt quite dizzy.’ It is also, for all its grandeur, an austere work. The massive choral and orchestral sections present a forbidding if impressive façade and this is only broken in one section which allows the tenor soloist a brief moment in the spotlight. This austerity no doubt reflects the influence of Cherubini whose C minor Requiem of 1815 has no soloists.