In Review--Ravel & Poulenc
Ballet & Requiem Chicago Symphony Orchestra & Chicago Symphony Chorus With Jessica Rivera and Bernard Haitink Ravel Daphnis et Chloe/Poulenc Gloria CSO-Resound/Harmonia Mundi It’s odd to find a requiem and an Impressionist ballet sharing the same disc. However, Francis Poulenc’s Gloria, with its fanfare, and Copeland-esqe orchestration, not to mention vocal arrangement, hardly resembles a requiem—at least not the kind we have grown accustom. The liner notes mention that Poulenc, (“a bad boy of French music”), composed the requiem for a fellow composer, Pierre-Octave Ferroud who was beheaded in an automobile accident. Also in the liner notes, “Over the next 25 years, as Poulenc examined his own beliefs and confronted the Roman Catholicism of his childhood, he developed a unique religious musical style, one that confirms and, in turn questions the significance of faith.” The six movements are cited as both “introspective and breezy.” And the soprano role ...