Recordings
“Budding singers, composers, conductors and producers everywhere take note: this is how it’s done.” Classic FM Magazine
Berlioz Grande Messe des Morts 1837
Robert Murray (tenor)
Wrocław Philharmonic Choir
Chetham’s School of Music Symphonic Brass Ensemble
Gabrieli Consort & Players
Paul McCreesh (conductor)
2012 BBC Music Magazine Technical Excellence Award
Paul McCreesh’s first release on the new Winged Lion label, together with Signum Classics, Berlioz’s Grande Messe des Morts was recorded in Poland as part of the Wratislava Cantans Festival (of which McCreesh was artistic director). This staggering performance is produced by a force of over 400 performers – drawn from the Gabrieli Consort and Players, the Wroclaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir and students from Chetham’s School of Music.
Excerpt: Dies Irae
“Certainly not for the faint-hearted either in terms of its enormous scale or its spectrum of powerful, visionary expression. The impact is overwhelming… McCreesh has achieved something quite out of the ordinary in this performance of the Requiem.”Gramophone Choice, Gramophone
“As fine an account as I have ever heard… It sounds wonderful, overwhelming in the great apocalyptic tuttis, but at the same time beautifully clear in detail, with a lovely bloom on the individual choral and instrumental lines…”Sunday Times
“The loveliness of the Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir; or the quiet corners of the final sections, when rest eternal beckons and the instruments’ individual colours rise to the fore.”Times
Winged Lion / Signum Classics
SIGCD280
October 2011