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John Foulds: A World Requiem

Released 1 January 2008


     

 “The thrilling baritone of Gerald Finley… deserve special mention.” The Telegraph

 “…Gerald Finley has the biggest workload and does it outstandingly well, with exemplary clarity… and dramatic presence” The Guardian

Composer: John Foulds

Conductor: Leon Botstein

Performers:

·        Jeanne-Michelle Charbonnet, soprano

·        Catherine Wynn-Rogers, mezzo-soprano

·        Stuart Skelton, tenor

·        Gerald Finley, baritone

·        BBC Symphony Chorus

·        Crouch End Festival Chorus

·        Philharmonia Chorus

·        Trinity Boys Choir

·        BBC Symphony Orchestra

Recorded: 11 November 2007, Royal Albert Hall, London

Released:  Due for release January 2008

Number of Discs: 2

Label: Chandos (CHSA 5058)

ASIN:B000ZBPPXQ

 

 

NEW RELEASES ON CHANDOS CD/MP3/WMA (Available Jan 08)

Disc of the Month: FOULDS: A WORLD REQUIEM (CHSA 5058)

This massive work was adopted by the British Legion as the centrepiece of its Armistice Night celebrations from 1923 to 1926, usually held at the Royal Albert Hall, but has not been heard since. John Foulds's heartfelt memorial to the war dead of all nations is here revived by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the American conductor Leon Botstein. This premiere recording of the work was made live at the concert performance on Remembrance Day 2007.

An international cast includes Jeanne-Michelle Charbonnet, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Stuart Skelton and Gerald Finley together with massed choirs, off-stage fanfares, and the great organ of the Royal Albert Hall. Foulds stated that the work was conceived as a tribute to the memory of the Dead  a message of consolation to the bereaved of all countries' and in its ardent invocation of peace it leans towards the mystical.

 

 

Click the photo below to access the Chandos page which links to a pdf download of the CD booklet

 

 

 

What the critics say

 

 

Andrew Clements, The Guardian, 4 January 2008

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,2234571,00.html

 

Rating: three out of five stars

Between 1923 and 1926, John Foulds' A World Requiem was performed each year in London on November 11, Armistice Night. It was the starting point for the British Legion's festival of remembrance, which still takes place each year at the Royal Albert Hall. But Foulds' 90-minute multi-denominational setting of texts from the Bible, Hindu poetry and John Bunyan, which he described as "a tribute to the memory of the dead - a message of consolation to the bereaved of all countries", lapsed into obscurity, together with the rest of his output. The performance that took place at the Albert Hall last November was the first for more than 80 years, and the most significant event so far in the modest Foulds revival of the past decade or so. The recording of that performance has appeared with almost indecent haste, as if this were music of burning immediacy and importance. Unfortunately, it's not. Most of the unwieldy and sometimes banal score lacks even the moments of originality that make some of Foulds's orchestral music intriguing.

 

A few cosmetic excursions into quarter-tones apart, the whole of the World Requiem is couched in the lingua franca of the early 20th-century English choral repertory, a style that Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells would have recognised and thought rather lacking in fibre. The respectful nods towards earlier requiems - brass fanfares that Berlioz would have recognised, writing for the children's choir straight out of Fauré, baritone solos recalling Brahms - seem more like attempts at musical ecumenism than genuine inspiration. And the bathetic quality of some of the texts, especially the appeal to all of the peoples of the world to live in peace, undermines the work's good intentions.

 

However, the performance under Leon Botstein, who has become a specialist in early 20th-century obscurities, is very fine. The baritone Gerald Finley has the biggest workload and does it outstandingly well, with exemplary clarity (not always a big plus with this text) and dramatic presence. He is well supported by tenor Stuart Skelton, soprano Jeanne-Michèle Charbonnet and mezzo Catherine Wyn-Rogers. The recording is spacious and disentangles the choral lines comfortably. Altogether, it's a definitive account of a disappointingly ordinary work.