Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1924)
Pénélope – Prelude (1913)
Requiem, Op 48 (1877)
Pelléas et Mélisande, Op 80: Suite (1900)
Masques et Bergamasques, Op 112: Suite (1919)
Suzanne Danco (soprano); Gérard Souzay (baritone)
L’Union Chorale de la Tour de Peilz
Orchestre de la Suisse Romande/Ernest Ansermet
rec. 16 October1955 (Requiem) & 22-24 February 1961, Victoria Hall, Geneva
Orchestral scores and vocal score for Requiem enclosed
Reviewed as MP3 download
Pristine Audio PASC 728 [76]

Gabriel Fauré was basically a miniaturist. The bulk of his output was songs and piano pieces, and the only large scale work of importance is his Requiem. Compared to, for instance, Verdi’s monumental corresponding work it is also small scale, both in length and choral and orchestral forces. His opera Pénélope is seldom performed, and when this recording was issued in 1962, Lionel Salter commented in The Gramophone that it was “never before available on record in this country”. The overture is a deeply serious work, depicting Pénélope’s long wait for Ulysses to return. There is darkness and drama, not always encountered in Fauré’s predominantly lyrical music. There exists a complete studio recording, originally issued on Erato in 1982, now on Warner Classics conducted by Charles Dutoit, with Jessey Norman in the title role and Alain Vanzo as Ulysses (review). It is still available as a download, but unfortunately without a booklet, at least from Presto Classical. A quick comparison shows that Dutoit is a great deal quicker than Ansermet. He takes 6:39 for the overture, while Ansermet needs 8:07, but there is no feeling that Dutoit is particularly rushed. Both conductors are reliable in French repertoire, so it is more a question of personal taste, maybe also an indication that they belong to different generations. 

The Requiem was the first stereo recording of the work, and belonged to the very first commercial recordings in stereo, when Decca launched the new format. Alec Robertson in The Gramophone hailed the mono issue in April 1956, both technically and musically, and when the stereo version arrived four years later he was even more enthusiastic. Andrew Rose’s XR remastering has further improved the sound and today the soon seventy-year-old recording can measure up with versions of much later provenance. I never came across it in the good old days. When I started collecting LPs in the 1960s, it was André Cluytens’ HMV recording that was my choice. Older collectors remember the Angel series with the white covers and the circular cover pictures. I was a great fan of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Victoria de los Ángeles even then, and de los Ángeles’ Pie Jesu was truly angelic. I often return to this recording with pleasure. Suzanne Danco, another favourite from long ago, sings the solo on Ansermet’s recording, and though she sings well her too prominent vibrato robs the music of its angelic quality. But there is excellent compensation here in the singing of the choral sopranos. Time and again they deliver delightful sweetness of tone, in particular in the concluding In paradisum, where a host of angels welcome sinners as well as believers to the heavenly meadows. The male voices are occasionally somewhat aggressive in tone, but that can be a matter of balance. The baritone soloist, the young Gérard Souzay, is on the other hand a pleasure to listen to. His entrance in the Offertorium is magically soft, and rarely has Libera me been so beautiful. 

The remaining two orchestral works also consist of miniatures. The incidental music for Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande is dreamy, like Debussy’s opera; La mort de Mélisande is truly touching, and the concluding Sicilienne, the most popular and life-enhancing number. I have to say, though, that I prefer Sibelius’ music for Pelléas. It was fairly contemporaneous to Fauré’s, composed in 1905 and is more down to earth. Maybe it is just a matter of geographical closeness, the Nordic chilliness.

The suite Masques et Bergamasques is a late composition, written in 1919 when Fauré was 74, but it is truly youthful music, entertaining and carefree. The overture is lively and fresh as mint, the Menuet is charming and sunny, the Gavotte is spirited and boisterous and the Pastorale is idyllic and summerlike. It may not be very important music of any depth, but I can imagine a senior colleague who remembers his youth with joy and wants to share it with other youthful seniors. I feel that Ansermet and his musicians feel the same. Those who have the same positive attitude are welcome to join our company and enjoy the music in excellent sound that belies its considerable age.

Göran Forsling