Cherubini: Requiem & Marche funA¨bre

La musique majestueuse, Cher Maitre Cherubini

I have used the term 'maitre'(master) because Cherubini, though an Italian, spent most of his professional life in France. Also, I reserve the term for a select group of composers whom I believe influenced the ultimate development of European music. I speak of the first master, Pierluigi da Palestrina, Bach, Vivaldi, van Beethoven, and Cherubini (who?). It should be mentioned that what follows is biased since the latter is my preferred composer. What ever style he chose to compose in, the music is majestic in orchestration, innovation, form, depth, texture, feeling, and melodic beauty. The requiem is no exception, he is the consummate master. He was obviously an extremely hardworking and serious composer. Unfortunately, he did not have the good sense to ingratiate himself with the Emperor Buonaparte (another Italian who spent his life in France). Bravo encore une fois mon cher maitre Cherubini. January 24, 2008

An unknown masterpiece

I bought this CD on the basis of the review by Stephen Jesse Taylor's review [see below] and agree with him about the Requiem, and the performance. I was simply stunned by the power of this piece.

Cherubini who, although Italian spent most of his adult life in France, introduced the Mozart Requiem to Paris in 1805, and obviously he knew that masterwork thoroughly. And although his style is not really very similar to Mozart's one can hear traces of the older work in such things as the Agnus dei.

One interesting, and odd, thing about Cherubini's Requiem is that, unlike most other Requiems, it calls for no soloists. And another stylistic matter: Cherubini is so eager to tell the story that he doesn't linger on endless repetitions of the familiar words. For instance, the Dies irae, which is not broken up into separate pieces as it is in other settings, goes like the wind. Mood painting is skillful, underlining the narrative.

I disagree with one thing in Taylor's review. He dismissed the Marche funèbre, but I found it quite stirring; obviously it is a ceremonial piece and has more than a little pomp, but that was the style of the time. Indeed, one can hear stylistic fingerprints that later show up in the works of composers like Berlioz and Meyebeer.

The performances, by Swiss Radio forces, are sterling. February 24, 2003

Intensely moving

In 1816 Cherubini composed magnificent funeral music to commemorate the earlier communist regicide of Louis XVI and the end of the first world war instigated by Napoleon. It is appropriately slow and solemn, played and sung with heart by Swiss-Italian musical groups. It is an entirely choral and orchestral work, without soloists in the tender parts, perhaps as a way of universalizing the suffering and fervid hope expressed in the requiem text, as in the collective relief of an exhausted Europe and above all France of the time. The brass in the Dies Irae presage the swirling brass bands of Berlioz's stupendous Requiem composed a few decades later for still another war. The music, singing, performance, and resonant sound were all much better than I expected. The CD is simply an unbeatable bargain for those who would like to try this music.

While there is a slightly better conducted performance available, no one has surpassed the heartfelt devotion of the singing here. Played at a decent volume on good speakers, this is a dramatically dynamic work one might not expect from the by-then conservative Cherubini and other lesser lights of the late Classical world (a world already shredded by the Terror and Napoleon). If you read French as well as English or Spanish you are in luck, because you get two different sets of printed commentary on this rare piece. No explanation for the unusual presence of Chinese gongs in both pieces is given. I believe the orchestra plays on modern instruments. June 12, 2001

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