About

Portsmouth Choral Union, with the newly restored organ at St Mary's Church, performs Requiem by Maurice Durufle.

The Requiem, op. 9, by Maurice Duruflé was commissioned in 1947 by the French music publisher Durand and is written in memory of the composer's father. At the time of commission, Duruflé was working on an organ suite using themes from Gregorian chants. He incorporated his sketches for that work into the Requiem, which uses numerous themes from the Gregorian 'Mass for the Dead'. Nearly all the thematic material in the work comes from chant.

Maurice Duruflé's haunting Requiem is one of the most beautiful 20th century choral masterpieces. Amid the terrors of wartime France, Maurice Duruflé imagined a music that seemed to exist outside of time – a Requiem of profound beauty and limitless consolation, in which ancient chants blossomed, like bare branches in springtime, into melodies that sink quietly into your soul.

Conductor: David Gostick
Organist: Ian Richardson
Soprano: Faye Eldret

The concert also includes:
Parry – I was glad
Handel – Zadok the Priest
Mendelssohn – Hear My Prayer