Fauré's Greatest Hits & a Jaroussky Experiment

Virgin Records have released a CD by Paavo Jarvi and the Orchestre de Paris of music by Gabriel Fauré that includes some of the composer's "greatest hits" and incorporates an interesting experiment: having the celebrated French countertenor Philippe Jaroussky sing the ethereal soprano solo in the Pie Jesu movement of the Messe de Requiem.  The experiment works, and the entire album is a great success.  Jaroussky is a great artist and "ethereal" is something he does very well.  Indeed, were one not tipped off that a man was singing this part, one might not notice the difference, as Jaroussky's high range approaches the soprano sound in effect, and he can float those high notes with the best of them.

Jaroussky's participation is not the only novelty.  One also benefits from the choir's presence to have it used in the Pavane, Op. 50, and one also experiences an unpublished student work, the composer's setting of Psalm 137 in Latin, Super flumina Babylonis, for choir and orchestra. (A surprise addition to my recorded psalms collection.)  The composer was but a teenage student when he wrote it, but it already shows the signs of budding musical genius and won him a prize at the time.  The Requiem is a sure-fire hit, and to gild the lily, as it were, and help fill out the disc to over an hour, we have the soulful Elegy, Op. 24, for cello and orchestra, skillfully performed by Eric Picard (the Orchestre de Paris' principal?  The booklet says nothing about any of the soloists).  Oh, and not to be overlooked, Matthias Goerne in the Requiem's baritone solos is stunningly good.  The Orchestre de Paris's choir can't be faulted.

My only hesitation about this disc before acquiring it was the conductor, Paavo Jarvi.  I've enjoyed his super-charged Beethoven symphonies and his work in other colorful, exciting music, but I wondered whether he could relax sufficiently to capture the essence of Fauré, whose music tends towards a more calm, reflective approach.  I found that Jarvi captured exactly the right tempo flow and mood in every piece on this disc.  His dramatic skills came to the fore in the big moments of the Messe de Requiem and the psalm (and, I'd neglected to mention above, the brief Cantique de Jean Racine for choir and orchestra), but the calm, meditative aspects of the two instrumental numbers and the Requiem were well captured in these readings.

In all, a spectacular success.