Duruflé Requiem
Venue
Duruflé Requiem
530 Tuscarawas St W
Canton, Ohio, United States
The Christ Presbyterian Church Chancel Choir, in anticipation of traveling to France later in 2024, presents the Requiem of Maurice Duruflé. One of the most celebrated choral masterworks of the twentieth century, the Requiem seeks to soothe and comfort the living while exalting the dead, much in the same manner as other Requiems by Fauré and Rutter. A devout Catholic, Duruflé used plainsong chants as source material to construct lush textures of great emotional impact.
The composer’s program notes, in part, read:
“This Requiem is not an ethereal work which sings of detachment from earthly worries. It reflects, in the immutable form of the Christian prayer, the agony of man faced with the mystery of his ultimate end. It is often dramatic, or filled with resignation, or hope or terror, just as the words of the Scripture themselves, which are used in the liturgy. It tends to translate human feelings before their terrifying, unexplainable of consoling destiny. In Paradisum [marks] the ultimate answer of Faith to all the questions by the flight of the soul to Paradise.”
“This Requiem is not an ethereal work which sings of detachment from earthly worries. It reflects, in the immutable form of the Christian prayer, the agony of man faced with the mystery of his ultimate end. It is often dramatic, or filled with resignation, or hope or terror, just as the words of the Scripture themselves, which are used in the liturgy. It tends to translate human feelings before their terrifying, unexplainable of consoling destiny. In Paradisum [marks] the ultimate answer of Faith to all the questions by the flight of the soul to Paradise.”