The music of a requiem may be sad, but the quality of the performance should not be, as this 1996 Virgin Classics' recording of Fauré's Requiem is. Soloists
Nancy Argenta and
Simon Keenlyside are emotionally effective in their movements, but the overall tone of the
Winchester Cathedral Choir is small and pitiable. Conductor
David Hill touches neither the abysmal depths of the opening Introit and Kyrie nor the sublime heights of the closing In paradisum, but instead keeps the performance steadily on simmer. The performance is reserved to the point of being constrained, as if no show of emotion more than a dull and insipid melancholy was permissible. The remaining works on the disc -- Fauré's Cantique de Jean Racine, and five motets by Pierre Villette and Jean Roger-Ducasse -- are more successful in that they ask only what the performers have to give: a round tone, a fair balance, and a rough and ready ensemble. The
Bournemouth Sinfonietta does no more than is asked of it. Virgin's digital sound is cool and somewhat bland.