A Requiem for Sir Andrew Davis

The distinguished conductor Sir Andrew Davis has died at age 80 after a brief struggle with leukemia. Today a tribute to him in the form of one of his earliest recordings, the Requiem by Maurice Duruflé (1902-86).

Davis, who was famed for his genial nature and wide repertoire, began recording in 1974. After a one-off assignment for Decca leading the orchestra for an Ilana Vered concerto recording, he began making discs in 1975 for Columbia (CBS in England). This particular LP comes from early 1977, when the conductor was 32.

The young Andrew Davis

Duruflé's Requiem was not nearly as well known in the 1970s as it is today. Back then there were three recordings. Today there are dozens. I was delighted to come across Davis' disc when it came out, particularly as I had heard his Grieg and Borodin LPs and was impressed.

The Duruflé was clearly inspired by the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré, and is of a similar beauty. Writing in Stereo Review, David Hamilton described it as follows: "An amalgam of Gregorian chant, post-impressionist modalism, and a highly personal romanticism shaped by an unerring coloristic sense regarding both voices and instruments, it powerfully conveys reverence, tenderness, and drama."

Maurice Duruflé

Felix Aprahamian in The Gramophone: "Andrew Davis's devotion to the Requiem is evident from his movingly beautiful account of it." Others preferred the composer's own recording, although it is of the version with organ, while Davis conducts the orchestral edition.

Hamilton liked them both. While he called the composer-led disc "a unique and treasurable document," he added that "the new Andrew Davis reading on Columbia is a performance of wholly comparable merit, with more sharply delineated work by the soloists and choruses and impressive recorded sound."

The soloists and the choral work by the Ambrosian Singers and the Desborough School Choir were not universally praised, but Aprahamian was pleased: "Heard against [the] subtly coloured orchestral background of the New Philharmonia, the choral timbre is ideally liturgical. No disappointed Carmens among the chorus here, nor anything raucous about the boys' voices. Kiri Te Kanawa’s 'Pie Jesu' is impeccably beautiful in tone and expression, but the baritone soloist [Siegmund Nimsgern] is not guiltless of an operatic vibrato in the more passionate utterances of his part and not quite in the same class."

Dame Kiri Te Kanawa

The LP also contains another Duruflé work that was welcomed by the critics. Hamilton wrote, "The Danse Lente, which serves as a kind of postlude to the Requiem on the Davis recording, strikes me as a melding of Debussy's Faune and one of Satie’s Gymnopédies. It provides an eminently listenable experience that makes me regret the absence from the catalog of the other two pieces in Durufié's Op. 6, which dates from 1936." Strangely, there does not seem to be a recording even today.

In all, the record is a testament to Sir Andrew's skills, even at the outset of his recording career. May he rest in peace.

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