Gabriel Fauré's Requiem in D minor had a long gestation period: with the Libera me written in 1877, and the work as a whole composed between 1887 and 1900, it was revisited by the composer numerous times, ultimately resulting in three versions that are performed today. The version used on this 2011 release from Hänssler Classic is the chamber orchestra version premiered in 1893, which has found favor with many conductors and ensembles, sufficiently to rival the full orchestral version on recordings.
Rolf Beck leads the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Choir of Lübeck and the
Ensemble Orchestral de Paris in this performance, and the intimate and peaceful feeling of the Requiem comes across in their serene presentation; even the ominous brass fanfares of the Libera me have a soft, rounded quality. The program is filled out with three other sacred works composed by
Fauré, the Cantique de Jean Racine (1865), Tu es Petrus (1872), and the Tantum ergo (1891), so listeners will note the consistently restrained style and quiet mood shared between them. The sound of the CD is clean and detailed, though it is suffused with the resonance of Christkirche in Rendsburg, and the voices are surrounded with an agreeable aural halo.