Duruflé: Requiem at Buckfast Abbey

On Saturday 2nd November (All Souls’ Day), the Choir of Buckfast Abbey will be joined by the Southern Sinfonia for a special concert in remembrance of the faithful departed. The main work is Maurice Duruflé’s sublime Requiem, performed in the version for choir, mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists, orchestra and organ. Completed in 1947 and dedicated to the memory of the composer’s father, this expressive music unites the timeless Gregorian chants for the Mass of the Dead with the sensuous harmonies of twentieth century France, in a piece of both great drama and spiritual tranquillity.

In the first half, Abbey Organist, Charles Maxtone-Smith will play Francis Poulenc’s electrifying Organ Concerto, and the choir will open the concert with a new choral arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s well-known Pavane pour une infante défunte (Pavane for a dead princess). Both of these works are dedicated to the Princesse de Polignac, the American-born heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune, who was a great patron of the Parisian music scene in the early 1900s and is buried locally in Torquay Cemetery.

Tickets to the concert, which starts at 19:30, are priced at £15 and are available from the Abbey Visitor Welcome Centre, or the website. Audience members can make an evening of it and dine before the concert at the restaurant at Northgate House or at the Abbey’s pizzeria, San Benedetto’s.

Buckfast Abbey is conveniently located midway between Exeter and Plymouth, just off the A38. Home to a community of Benedictine monks, the Abbey offers a unique, tranquil ambience, and is open seven days a week to the public. For more information about music at Buckfast Abbey visit www.buckfast.org.uk/music