King’s College’s recent recording of the Fauré Requiem was the best-selling core classical album of 2014. For this new recording featuring another great French Requiem, the Choir is reunited with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment to perform Maurice Duruflé’s 1947 Requiem, in the composer’s own version for soprano, choir, organ and small orchestra. The album is completed with the Messe Cum Jubilo for male voices and the Four Motets, mirroring Fauré’s Messe Basse for boys on the earlier album to which this is very much a partner.

The most famous of the Four Motets is Ubi Caritas (‘Where charity and love are, God is there’), a staple of the Choir’s Easter repertoire and was sung at Downing Street when the Choir attended the Prime Minister’s Easter Reception in 2013. The Choir is joined by Patricia Bardon – youngest ever winner of the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition – for the Pie Jesu of the Requiem, with the other solo sections sung by the Choral Scholars of the Choir in accordance with Duruflé’s instructions. Former Choral Scholar Ashley Riches returns to the Choir as soloist in the Messe Cum Jubilo.

This recording also represents the last time the Chapel organ at King’s was played before it was removed for substantial restoration. The instrument in its current form dates from the early 20th Century, but incorporates parts of earlier incarnations of the instrument dating back to the early 1600s.