For its spring concert in April, Dartington Community Choir’s director of music Simon Capet brings together two very different Requiems, first performed more than half a century apart - Maurice Duruflé’s of 1947 and Karl Jenkins’s of 2005. Both are based on the traditional Latin requiem mass for the dead, but both depart in various ways from that tradition; and both are instantly appealing.
Duruflé’s lyrical interpretation moves away, like Fauré’s Requiem of half a century earlier, from the traditional emphasis on tragic anguish and the dramatic horror of hell, into something more spiritually serene, blending Gregorian plainchant, which Duruflé loved deeply, with the sensuous harmonies of Faure, Debussy and Ravel, and also with Renaissance contrapuntal techniques and hints of contemporary opera. Lyrical and gentle, this mass leaves out the terrifying Dies Irae (day of judgment) section of the traditional requiem mass, concentrating instead on a gentler impression of forgiveness, consolation and faith. The composer dedicated his Requiem to the memory of his father.
Karl Jenkins’s Requiem is like most of his work, an unashamed, multicultural melting pot of ideas and musical styles. He interjects movements featuring five Japanese funeral poems in the form of haikus sung in Japanese, with those traditionally encountered in a requiem mass, and oriental instruments such the shakuhachi (Japanese flute) are included in the orchestration. And the ferocious Dies Irae - in the greatest possible contrast to Duruflé’s omission of this section - actually has a hip-hop beat. Hugely popular, like Jenkins’s other works, his Requiem topped the classical music charts of 2005.