St Peter's Parish News
Thursday 1 January 1970
Duruflé’s Requiem
Many thanks are due to Adrian, Chris and our choir for leading our All Souls service last Sunday singing Duruflé’s Requiem. Maurice Duruflé composed the piece during WWII in occupied France, and completed it in 1947. It is a glorious work which uses snippets of Gregorian chant overlaid with complex choral harmony. The text and the music speak to us of the complexity of emotions felt at a time of loss, but remind us of the promise of eternal life. It is a difficult work to perform, not least for its fiendishly tricky organ part, and our musicians have been rehearsing very hard to bring this together for Sunday. Many people came into St Peter’s to remember loved ones, and were moved by the musical offering as they lit candles prayerfully. If you would like to hear Duruflé’s Requiem again, there is a superb recording available online, sung by Choir of Trinity College Cambridge, directed by Stephen Layton, in l’Eglise Saint-Eustache, Paris:
