Fauré Requiem, CBSO, Symphony Hall, Birmingham Classical, Birmingham 21 March 2024.

5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: David Gray & Paul Gray.

Fauré – Pavane

Saint-Saëns – Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso

Ravel – Tzigane

Fauré – Requiem

“A concert including dazzling virtuosity and profound spirituality.”

Eschewing the more grandiose and dramatic models of many of his predecessors, Fauré’s setting of the Requiem is an emotionally contained, intimate and altogether more personal realisation of the text. His first version was for choir and organ. He later expanded this to a version for chamber orchestra dominated by lower strings. Faure then further extended the scoring to include full orchestra.

The CBSO gave the latter version, which was appropriate, given the very large scale of the vocal forces involved. The danger with large-scale performances of this work is that the sense of the intimate and personal can be lost. Not so here. Conductor, Alexandre Bloch, brought out the dark orchestral timbres redolent of the earlier chamber setting, and ‘paced’ the performance perfectly: hushed passages blossomed naturally; effortlessly into broader and more expansive textures. The effect was organic, thoughtful and meditative.

The choir responded to Bloch’s reading with a rich, focused and impressively well-blended tone. They took Fauré’s long lines in their stride with lyrical shaping and packed a significant punch in the more declamatory passages. The choir’s pianissimo singing was spine-tingling, and the diction expressive and precise. Chorus Master, Julian Wilkins, has yet again created a true marvel of the most accurate, expressive and outstanding choral singing.

The orchestra was equally responsive, offering vibrant and full-bodied support.

The decision for the Youth and Children’s Choruses to sing the Pie Jesu perhaps sacrificed some of the expressive nuance that a solo voice might have delivered. But the simplicity and innocence of the reading had a charm of its own. Baritone soloist, Benjamin Appl, was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s last pupil. The hand of the old master showed in many of the details of his reading, which was nuanced, sensitive and evocative.

The first half of the concert started with an exquisitely shaped delivery of Fauré’s Pavane and then showcased some dazzling violin virtuosity from Rosanne Philippens. Saint-Saëns’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso is a quirky and characterful piece. Philippens and Bloch perfectly captured its good humour and fun.

Ravel’s Tzigane is an over-the-top and perhaps rather tongue-in-cheek homage to the Gypsy Violin. Philippens milked every last drop of expressive potential out of an impassioned and extended opening solo passage. Tzigane goes on to explore - and perhaps explode – all the stereotypical gestures we associate with the gypsy violin genre. Philippens seized the opportunity to deliver a technically breath-taking bravura performance. Truly outstanding.

A varied concert packed full of delights: an exhilarating first-half, followed by a stunningly well realised Fauré Requiem.

Alexandre Bloch – Conductor

Rosanne Philippens – Violin

Benjamin Appl – Baritone

CBSO Chorus

CBSO Youth Chorus

CBSO – Childrens’ Chorus

Julian Wilkins – Chorus Master