Every year we have a performance of a Requiem at Remembrancetide. It is, of course, a service for the dead, and so far all the composers have been dead too.
Not this year. John Rutter is very much alive, and celebrating his 70th birthday. He came to conduct in person, which added a whole new dimension. He wrote the piece in 1985 and confided to us that he thought it would only be performed once. Far from it, but as he reminded us, there’s a convention that composers only write one Requiem, except Cherubini, who wrote two!
But before we embarked on this, we had a performance of Fauré’s Cantique de Jean Racine, known to all the regular congregation and much loved. Fauré won a prize with it when he was still a student and when you hear the familiar introduction so floating, so French, so late 19th century, you see how he did. It was good to hear it with quite a large group of voices (some good French in the basses, particularly) and it is obvious John Rutter is used to handling large choirs, and loves it. The heavenly harp (just one) added to a sort of largescale shimmer in the sound.
It is amazing what can be accomplished in one afternoon if you put your mind to it.
John Rutter had told us to expect not just the usual Latin text, but other texts, which he particularly likes, including Psalms 130 and the beloved 23. He remarked, to my own receptive ears, how he was the last generation to grow up with the Book of Common Prayer. One very noticeable feature all through the score was the use of timpani – Tom Lee, take a bow! With the cello the opening promised to be sombre, but Eternal light was ushered in by the harp. The present choir set-up with gentlemen in the galleries, and ladies and children in the cross-aisles in front of the chancel worked very well. The Requiem Eternam is repeated with light on it, so to speak, and the sun breaks through as the Kyrie, with the soft timpani giving the pulse.
An unaccompanied cello solo leads into Psalm 130 – Out of the Deep (very appropriately) and to a remarkable amount of power from the choir. The successful device of repeating the first line at the end was used here.
Pie Jesu seems to have “solo” printed on composers’ minds. All this time our soprano, Julia Featherstone, had been sitting patiently in the pulpit. We will sadly be losing her after long service, at Christmas, when James, her husband, becomes Headmaster of Exeter Cathedral School. Her nice floating tone and a good top note to conclude, with the harp once more being ethereal, was very effective.
The Sanctus brought something quite different, with church bells on the Glockenspiel (after all it means ‘Playing of Bells’) while the Agnus Dei worked up to thunderclaps – not what we expected! The words “I am the Resurrection and the Life” were added here.
The Lord is my shepherd in Psalm 23 – and shepherds have oboes. The oboe wove in and out over the well-loved words – my favourite woodwind instrument. The gentle pastoral atmosphere was as it should be!
The last movement, Communio, featured Julia once more. The single soprano for “I Heard a Voice from Heaven” worked very well. Once more soft timpani and the cello appeared as the Latin began. There are a lot of warm waves of sound in the score. And all this time David Moore was giving extra body on the organ when needed. And the Requiem ends with a lovely unaccompanied chord. And less was more. A compact setting of about 40 minutes. And all the points had been made.