Sunday, April 24, 2011
Gounod's Sanctus
Just back from Easter services, on this comparatively balmy day here in New York. The choir was particularly excellent -- beside the standard favorites, they also performed the Sanctus of Charles Gounod. Gounod is one of those (for me) hugely underrated composers of stunning Masses (and one of the best renditions of Faust, too).
But I had never heard the Sanctus, from (as I discovered here at home) his Messe Solennelle de Saint Cécile. Here is a recording with the great Jessye Norman in the lead (ours was good, but not this good -- wait for the crescendo and explosion at about the 3:40 mark). Happy Easter.
https://mirrorofjustice.blogs.com/mirrorofjustice/2011/04/gounods-sanctus.html
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Marc: Thank you so much for your post. The Sanctus from the St. Cecelia Mass is one of my all-time favorite pieces of music. For those of you with the pleasure of hearing this for the first time still ahead of you, you should be sure to turn up the volume on whatever listening device you are using as far as you can to get the full effect of the crashing Sanctus that Marc describes. The whole Mass is woefully underrated--it is fabulous in its entirety, although I would agree that the Sanctus is the crowning achievement. I wish it were performed more frequently; it can even be hard to find recordings of it (I have three). Happy listening to all!