Durufle: Requiem / Messe Cum Jubilo / Quatre Motets

For this new recording the choir are reunited with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to perform Maurice Duruflé's 1947 'Requiem', in the composer's own version for soprano, choir, organ and small orchestra. The album is completed with the 'Messe Cum Jubilo' for male voices and the Four Motets, mirroring Fauré's 'Messe Basse' for boys on the earlier album, to which this is very much a partner.

The most famous of the Four Motets is 'Ubi Caritas' ('Where charity and love are, God is there), a staple of the choir's Easter repertoire and which was sung at Downing Street when the choir attended the Prime Minister's Easter reception in 2013.

The choir is joined by Patricia Bardon, youngest ever prize-winner of the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, for the 'Pie Jesu' of the Requiem, with the other solo sections sung by the men of the choir in accordance with Duruflé's instructions. Former choral scholar Ashley Riches, also a former member of the Royal Opera House Jette Parker Young Artists programme, returns to the choir as soloist in the 'Messe Cum Jubilo'.

This recording represents the last time the organ at King's was played before it was removed for substantial restoration.