Duruflé's Requiem

About

When you have access to one of Australia’s most popular choral conductors and the best organist in the country, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to experience them both in the same concert. Head to Melbourne Town Hall where you’ll listen to Joseph Nolan play an organ as tall as a four-storey building, and Warren Trevelyan-Jones conduct the brilliant MSO Chorus, joined by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Chorus.

This anachronistic concert program features the music of two French composers who found inspiration in the depths of artistic history. Gabriele Fauré’s graceful Cantique de Jean Racine was composed in 1865, and its text stems from a hymn written centuries earlier. Fast-forward to 1960 when Maurice Duruflé composed Quatre Motets sur des thèmes grégoriens, inspired by the serene musical ideas that once existed in old Gregorian chants. The foundations of his Requiem are also infused with melodies from the medieval era, and he makes them his own with an ethereal touch.