Charles – Dvorak, Anton Gounod: Requiem & Mass In D

   in Choir & Organ (May, 2015)
The USP of this CD is that both these familiar pieces are here recorded in unfamiliar guises. Both use reduced instrumentation: the Gounod is given in an idiomatic organ arrangement (Gounod himself embarked on such an arrangement shortly before his death), while the Dvorak, which was originally conceived with organ accompaniment, is heard in a newly arranged version for wind quintet. The arrangements will make these works available to those choirs whose circumstances – financial or practical – make the composers’ full orchestral accounts impossible, and are to be lauded. The reputation of the Berlin Rundfunkchor, whose director is our own Simon Halsey (recently deservedly honoured with the Queen’s Medal for …