Following the huge popular success of his oratorio La Redemption, given at Birmingham in 1882, Gounod was commissioned by his publisher, Novello, and the Birmingham Festival, to furnish them with another sacred trilogy. This large-scale choral work, Mors et Vita, the Requiem ''Death'' section joined to the visionary ''Life'' finale by a shorter ''Judgement'' sequence, proved less durable than its predecessor.
Gounod's biographer, James Harding, has referred to these sacred works as 'dropsical' and in post-Victorian musical circles they did not meet with much serious consideration. At a time when even Faust seemed likely to fade from the operatic repertory, such dubiously pious attempts to please the lush taste of Cardinal Newman and his ilk had no chance.
In the 1880s, however, they proved just the ticket. Gounod's private woes had left him in such a public mess in England that he was unable to enter the country for fear of arrest, so could not attend the premiere in Birmingham, nor a later performance at the Royal Albert Hall in the presence of Queen Victoria herself.
The soloists at the first performance were the biggest names at the time—Emma Albani, Janet Patey, Edward Lloyd and Charles Santley, whose availability, perhaps, dictated the prominence accorded to the baritone role. In a world in which Verdi had provided no baritone part in his Requiem only 11 years earlier, this must have come as reliable compensation. Hanslick described Gounod's oratorios as ''the work of a man who is pious but, on account of so much piety, feeble as a composer'' and another, anonymous, critic hailed Mors et Vita as ''the ooze of the erotic priest''. Even in our own era of eclectic taste it seems over indulgent and although clearly the work of an opera composer, in a way not operatic enough.
In this spectacular and affectionate recording Michel Plasson has the services of four singers all of whom are experienced in the performance of Gounod's operas. The soprano role, despite Albani (or perhaps because of her?.), is hardly demanding. In the first part Barbara Hendricks's solo with female chorus, ''Felix culpa'', barely moves above the stave, but via a brief duet with the mezzo, Nadine Denize, it gives way to a marvellous quartet—what one expects from Gounod—the ''Ingemisco''. John Aler is particularly effective here in the tenor part—his solo ''Inter oves locum praesta'' is a dull piece by comparison. The ensuing ''Confutatis maledictis'' is so obviously influenced by Verdi that it is surprising that Gounod fails, in the ''Agnus Dei'' for soprano and chorus that ends the first part, to emulate Verdi's totally operatic response for similar forces. But I suppose, its dedication to Pope Leo notwithstanding, one must remember that Gounod was writing for a predominantly Protestant public for whom theatre and religion combined was not only undesirable but illegal.
Since the rarity value of this work is what will attract the majority of prospective listeners, to sample it, I would recommend a straight skip to Disc 2, track 4, the orchestral epilogue to Mors, a surging piece of orchestral Schmaltz that, if transposed to the Palais Garnier, would have suited an Act 3 ballet very nicely. This is followed by the famous ''Sleep of the dead'' Prelude, then to the positively hunting-horn judgement trumpets and the always excellent Jose van Dam dividing the sheep and the goats.
If this music seems the height of nineteenth-century hypocritical piety, it is no more excessive than the Church scene or the final trio from Faust—not as good—but a rollicking performance and an earfor anyone with a serious interest in Victorian taste and morality.'