Requiem by Maurice Durufle Conductor: David Gostick Organ: Ian Richardson Soprano – Faye Eldret Parry – I was glad Handel – Zadok the Priest Mendelssohn – Hear My Prayer The Requiem, op. 9, by Maurice Duruflé was commissioned in 1947 by the French music publisher Durand and is written in memory of the composer’s father. At the time of commission, Duruflé was working on an organ suite using themes from Gregorian chants. He incorporated his sketches for that work into the Requiem, which uses numerous themes from the Gregorian “Mass for the Dead.” Nearly all the thematic material in the work comes from chant. Maurice Duruflé’s haunting Requiem – one of the most beautiful of 20th century choral masterpieces – Amid the terrors of wartime France, Maurice Duruflé imagined a music that seemed to exist outside of time – a Requiem of profound beauty and limitless consolation, in which ancient chants blossomed, like bare branches in springtime, into melodies that sink quietly into your soul... See more >