Requiem (Fauré)
Different from typical Requiem settings, the full sequence Dies irae is omitted, replaced by just one of its sections Pie Jesu.
Fauré wrote of the work, "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.
[3] In 1887–88, Fauré composed the first version of the work, which he called "un petit Requiem"[4] with five movements (Introit and Kyrie, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei and In Paradisum), but did not include his Libera me.
The church authorities allowed no female singers and insisted on boy treble and alto choristers and soloists; Fauré composed the work with those voices in mind, and had to employ them for his performances at the Madeleine, but in the concert hall, unconstrained by ecclesiastical rules, he preferred female singers for the upper choral parts and the solo in the Pie Jesu.
The composer said of the work, "Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.
After one measure of just D in the instruments, the choir enters pianissimo in six parts on the D minor chord and stays on it in homophony for the entire text "Requiem aeternam" (eternal rest).
In gradual progression of harmony and a sudden crescendo, a first climax is reached on "et lux perpetua" (and lasting light), diminishing on a repeated "luceat eis" (may shine for them).
The Offertoire begins in B minor with a canon of alto and tenor in short succession on a simple modal melody with little ambitus, in a prayer "O Domine, Jesu Christ, rex gloriae" (O Lord, Jesus Christ, King of Glory) to free the souls of the departed from eternal punishment and the deep lake, ending in unison.
The baritone enters with "Hostias et preces", offerings brought with praises, beginning on one repeated note, but asking with more melody "fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam" (make them, Lord, transcend from death to life).
The choir repeats the first line of the text on the same motif as in the beginning, but in more elaborate polyphony in four parts, concluded by an uplifting Amen in B major.
The orchestra changes tone, the dreamy accompaniment is replaced by firm and powerful major chords with a horn fanfare marked forte, and the male voices declare "Hosanna in excelsis" (praise in the highest).
Then, while the motion in the orchestra stays the same, the key changes to the minor mode, and the Lamb of God is asked for rest in chords of daring harmonic progression.
"In paradisum deducant angeli" (May angels lead you to paradise) rests on a continuous shimmering motion in fast broken triads in the orchestra.
[14] Fauré continued to work intermittently on the Requiem, and by 1893 he judged the score ready to be published (although the proposed publication fell through).
The Fauré specialist Jean-Michel Nectoux began working on it in the 1970s,[15] but the first edition to be published was by the English conductor John Rutter in 1989.
[15] Music & Letters judged the Rutter edition, "makeshift and lacking in the standards of scholarship one expects from a university press".
[16] Fauré's own manuscript survives but, as the critic Andrew Thomson puts it, "the waters were muddied by his overwritings on the original MSS, adding two bassoons and two more horns and trumpets, together with modifications of the cello and bass parts.
"[16] Reviewing the Nectoux and Delage edition, Thomson wrote of "several pleasant surprises [including] the restoration of the urgent timpani rolls underlining 'Christe eleison', and the ethereal harp chords which so enhance the spiritual atmosphere of 'Lux aeterna'".
[17] At the end of the 1890s Fauré's publisher, Julien Hamelle, suggested that the composer should rescore the Requiem for performance in concert halls.
The autograph of the resulting 1900 version does not survive, and critics have speculated whether Fauré, who was not greatly interested in orchestration, delegated some or all of the revision to one of his pupils.
[22] The orchestration of the final version comprises mixed choir, solo soprano, solo baritone, two flutes, two clarinets (only in the Pie Jesu), two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets (only in the Kyrie and Sanctus), three trombones, timpani (only in the Libera me), harp, organ, strings (with only a single section of violins, but divided violas and cellos, as before).
Nectoux has expressed the view that what he terms the "church" (1893) and the "concert" (1900–1901) versions of the Requiem should both be performed, the choice of edition being dictated by the size of the venue.
[21] Fauré, however, complained in 1921 that the orchestra at a performance of the work had been too small,[23] and commented to Eugène Ysaÿe on the "angelic" violins during the Sanctus in the full orchestral version.
[24] The Requiem was first recorded in 1931, by Fanny Malnory-Marseillac, soprano; Louis Morturier, baritone; the Choeur de la Société Bach and Orchestre Alexandre Cellier, conducted by Gustav Bret.
The exception was a Columbia set recorded in 1938, with Suzanne Dupont, soprano; Maurice Didier, baritone; Les Chanteurs de Lyon and Le Trigentuor instrumental lyonnais, conducted by Ernest Bourmauck.
[27] Since 1984, when John Rutter's edition of the 1893 score was recorded for the Conifer label, there have been numerous sets of both the 1893 and 1900 versions issued on CD.
The Requiem is often combined in recordings and concert performances with Fauré's early Cantique de Jean Racine, an award-winning composition originally for choir and organ which the composer wrote aged 19 in his last year of ten years at the school of church music École Niedermeyer de Paris.
