Duruflé Complete Choral Works by Houston Chamber Choir

Maurice Duruflé

Houston Chamber Choir

Duruflé Complete Choral Works

Price: € 19.95
Format: CD
Label: Signum Classics
UPC: 0635212057124
Catnr: SIGCD 571
Release date: 05 April 2019
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Label
Signum Classics

UPC
0635212057124

Catalogue number
SIGCD 571

Release date
05 April 2019

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

About the album

The choral works of Duruflé, like his organ works, are small in number but beautifully crafted. Frequently written and rewritten until he was completely satisfied, he was a composer who rethought and reconfigured his music right up to the moment he had to let go of it. Often described as a man out of step with his times, his pieces look back to Gregorian chant and plainsong at a time when the musical life of his home city of Paris was steeped in radical new compositional ideas – a testament perhaps to Duruflé’s enduring love of France’s choral heritage.

In a new recording produced by Grammy® winning producer Blanton Alspaugh, the Houston Chamber Choir are led by artistic director Robert Simpson on their first release with Signum Records.

Artist(s)

Houston Chamber Choir (vocals)

Founded in 1995 by Artistic Director Robert Simpson, the Houston Chamber Choir received the 2019 Grammy® Award for Best Choral Performance for its recording of the complete works of Maurice Duruflé. Other honours include Chorus America’s Margaret Hillis Award for Choral Excellence and the American Prize, Professional Choir Division. Dubbed by Jamie Bernstein as “the choral equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters” the Houston Chamber Choir is as comfortable singing jazz with Christian McBride and Dave Brubeck as performing Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel with violist Kim Kashkashian, and Mass Observation by Tarik O’Regan. Of that performance O’Regan wrote, “I was simply astounded...it felt like time stood still”. A champion of new music, the Houston Chamber Choir has premièred commissioned works by Christopher Theofanidis,...

that performance O’Regan wrote, “I was simply astounded...it felt like time stood still”. A champion of new music, the Houston Chamber Choir has premièred commissioned works by Christopher Theofanidis, Jocelyn Hagen, Mark Buller, David Ashley White, Dominick DiOrio, and Christian McBride. They have performed on tour at Trinity Church, Wall Street, New York City, Yale University and the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. The Houston Chamber Choir was invited to appear at the 2020 World Symposium on Choral Music in New Zealand.

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Robert Simpson (conductor)

Norman Fischer (cello)

Ken Cowan (organ)

Eduardo Tercero (baritone)

Cecilia Duarte (mezzo soprano)

Composer(s)

Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé was a French composer and organist, who wrote chamber music and works for choir, organ and orchestra. He was also organist of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris, professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatory, and formed a famous organ duo with his wife Marie-Madeleine Chevalier. Duruflé published only a handful of works, because he was highly critical. He was not easily pleased, and often continued to edit and change pieces after publication. The result of this perfectionism is that his music tends to be well polished, and is still frequently performed in concerts around the world, especially his organ music. Duruflé's works are reminiscent of impressionism, and are characterized by clarity, poetry and a clear design. Besides, Gregorian chant is an important source of...

Duruflé published only a handful of works, because he was highly critical. He was not easily pleased, and often continued to edit and change pieces after publication. The result of this perfectionism is that his music tends to be well polished, and is still frequently performed in concerts around the world, especially his organ music.
Duruflé's works are reminiscent of impressionism, and are characterized by clarity, poetry and a clear design. Besides, Gregorian chant is an important source of inspiration, which is evident from the use of medieval modes. For his most famous work, the Requiem, Duruflé took the Gregorian mass of the dead as his point of departure, and combined it with the structure and optimism of the Requiem of Fauré.

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01.

Messe “Cum Jubilo” pour choeur de barytons et orgue, Op. 11: I. Kyrie: I. Kyrie