..not that I normally need to be persuaded to buy a CD with Philippe Jaroussky's name on the cover. However certain choral works and especially requiems have always had an emotionally negative effect on me. My first memory of Fauré's requiem was sitting through a performance at the local church, not understanding much of the music but feeling overcome with sadness and focusing on the knitted sweater of the woman in front of me to keep me from crying. When I heard another church performance of it in my teens, it was to hear a friend of the family sing in the choir and as my musical tastes were stuck in the top 20 charts at the time, I probably couldn't have cared less about the music - or I remembered all too well how I'd felt the last time I'd heard it, and wanted to distance myself.
So I was a little skeptical about this one, despite the fact that I knew Philippe Jaroussky was involved in the project. Curiously, EMI/Virgin classics seems to market it as Philippe Jaroussky's solo album even though he only lends his vocals to a single track, namely the famous Pie Jesu. As I didn't remember anything of the piece as a whole since I heard it 10-12 years ago, I must admit I had expected a few more solo parts or even a duet (Matthias Goerne is the other soloist) - instead my inexperience with listening to choir works made me long for something to stand out from that blurry mass of blending voices (which is also probably the reason why I prefer concertos to symphonies). Then again, my inexperience (or as it were, bad experience) with the piece could also be the reason, as the additional pieces on the album (Cantique de Jean Racine, Elégie for cello and orchestra, Pavane for orchestra and mixed choir, and Super flumina Babylonis) left me feeling a lot more positive about my recent purchase.
As for the Pie Jesu, which is, I suppose the hit single of the piece (EMI/Virgin even released it as a digital single), Philippe Jaroussky makes a great effort. In the EPK video he explains that it's difficult to sing mainly because it's very high and you can really tell from the recording that it reaches up towards the limit of Philippe's higher register. I suppose we all have different tastes when it comes to tone in a voice and personally I've always been more partial to Philippe's lower register, as when he did Vivaldi's Stabat Mater - I felt the highest notes of Pie Jesu seemed kind of laboured compared to the rest, whereas the last note which seems to be suspended in mid air is nothing short of perfection.
Conductor Paavo Järvi mentions in the EPK that this is the first time a countertenor has recorded Pie Jesu as part of Fauré's Requiem, so in this sense it's a kind of controversial recording. There are probably those who think it's a bad decision, almost like a sacrilege, and I can see their side too (as I get upset when contraltos are cast as Giulio Cesare or Nerone). However, keeping in mind Philippe's statement that his voice sounds like more like a child than a woman and that he uses his voice as means of holding on to a childlike side of himself, the so-called controversial decision makes sense. The vocal quality of a countertenor and that of a boy treble are very different, but both convey a sense of purity and innocence. To compare and decide for yourself, I'll leave you with Philippe Jaroussky's recent version along with Aled Jones' version from the mid 80's.
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