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JANSMUSIC RECOMMENDED RECORDING

Victoria: Officium Defunctorum (Requiem) 
Magnificat, directed by Philip Cave
Linn Records CKD 060

I can still remember the first time I discovered the Victoria Requiem. It was 1989 and I had just moved into my first "proper" flat with 2 very sophisticated young ladies, one of whom had a CD collection.  Up till then all I'd ever had were cassettes and LPs (this is where I start showing my age!) - and I worked my way through her collection, being caught up on the way by this. It has remained one of my star choral works and I've since sung it a couple of times myself.

In this performance it is sung seamlessly by the choir Magnificat, without any sense of urgency or discomfort, and the parts are beautifully balanced. The recording was done in St Jude's Hampstead, a really airy acoustic which also manages to capture some of the intimacy needed for the work.

Victoria set some bits of the Office for the Dead, as well as the actual Requiem Mass, although it is commonly known as the Requiem. He begins with the introit Taedet animam meam which is sung with energy and precision, and this is followed by the chants of Ego sum resurrectio and the Benedictus - it feels like these are sung at more of a distance, although I'm sure that's just an oral illusion.  I do love men-only chanting - probably because of the sense of peace it conveys - and there's a good 5 minutes of it here, which sets the scene for the slinky harmonies which follow as we enter the Requiem itself. 

The Kyrie is just gorgeous on this recording, building up from a single entry, with a chance to hear some more individual voices in the christe, followed by the repeat Kyrie which has one of the most fantastic lines ever written in the history of music, the kind that makes me slide off my chair and go weak at the knees, and don't these singers know it!  Buy it just for this moment (track 5) and put it on repeat play.