Requiem, Op. 48

Bassoons, horns and low strings play D fortissimo, then fade. The choir enters pianissimo in six parts on a D minor chord. The violins and organ rest.

Fauré’s reasons for writing a Requiem are uncertain. His father died in 1885 and his mother on New Year’s Eve 1887, but he had begun the work before she died. In 1902 he wrote to Louis Aguettant that it was composed “for nothing … for pleasure, if I may say so”.

The first performance was given at a funeral service at the Madeleine in Paris. On 16 January 1888 Fauré conducted five movements at the funeral of Joseph Lesoufaché, an architect. The Offertoire and the Libera me were added later.

The marking changes to Andante moderato. Violas and cellos begin to move, and the tenors sing a falling melody over them. The organ enters on soft foundation stops while the horns and bassoons rest.

Bassoons, horns and trumpets play a brief, strong chord before the soprano prayer. The organ adds reed stops, then returns to its foundation stops. The sopranos sing “Te decet hymnus” over moving violas and cellos.

At “Exaudi” the whole choir sings fortissimo, and the next phrase is immediately softer. Fauré continues to alternate loud and soft phrases while the violas and cellos keep moving beneath the voices.

The Kyrie takes up the tenors’ earlier melody. Sopranos, altos and tenors sing it in unison before the writing divides into four parts. The bass line continues to move underneath.

The first “Christe” is fortissimo, the next piano. The choir repeats this alternation above moving violas and cellos. The organ’s reed stops are added for the louder phrase.

The choir returns to “Kyrie eleison” in short, quiet phrases. Cellos and basses continue beneath. Towards the end a bassoon and a horn play soft solo lines, and the movement closes on a chord of D minor.

According to a story often retold, after the first performance at the Madeleine in January 1888 the priest called Fauré over and told him, “We have no need of all these novelties; the Madeleine’s repertoire is quite rich enough.”

The violas and cellos rise slowly above the organ and grow louder through the prelude. The marking is Adagio molto. Fauré left the violins, winds and harp out of this movement, so the choir sings with these lower instruments.

Altos and tenors sing “O Domine Jesu Christe” in close canon. The narrow B minor melody begins pianissimo, marked dolcissimo. Each new statement starts a step higher, and the basses join the later entries.

Fauré completed the baritone’s Hostias in the spring of 1889. The Libera me, written for voice and organ in 1877, was added to the Requiem in 1891. On 21 January 1893 Fauré conducted the seven-movement work at the Madeleine, where he was choirmaster.

The prayer opens “O Domine Jesu Christe”. The liturgical Offertory begins at “Domine”, so the “O” is Fauré’s addition. He also shortened the next verse and left out the third verse entirely.

In 1902 Fauré told the interviewer Louis Aguettant that, perhaps by instinct, he had wanted to escape the conventional: “for so long I have been playing the organ at funeral services! I have had it up to here. I wanted to do something else.”

The baritone begins “Hostias et preces” (offerings and prayers) on a repeated note. The tempo changes to Andante moderato, in three beats to the bar. Quiet quavers in the violas and cellos accompany him, and the choir rests.

Bernard Kruysen was a Dutch baritone, born in Montreux in 1933, who studied in Paris with Pierre Bernac. He became one of the leading interpreters of French song. Francis Poulenc accompanied him in recital.

The strings stop, and the organ plays a short solo between the baritone’s phrases. The baritone returns with “fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam” (let them pass from death to life), and his melody now moves more freely.

The opening tempo returns. All four choral parts now take up the canon, including the sopranos, who were silent at the start. Their entries overlap above the organ, and the strings play little under the voices.

In 1921 Fauré wrote to René Fauchois that all the religious illusion he had ever had went into his Requiem, which is “dominated from one end to the other by a very human feeling: confidence in eternal rest”.

Fauré added “Amen” to the Offertory text. A D♯ turns the closing harmony to B major, and the voices exchange the word. The strings play a last chord, and the choir and organ finish alone.

The harp plays rising E♭ major arpeggios while two viola parts move around each other. The sopranos sing “Sanctus” on three notes, and the men reply. The organ holds the harmony.

Paul Taffanel conducted the expanded Requiem at the Trocadéro in Paris on 12 July 1900, with the Société des concerts du Conservatoire. Before the score was printed, Fauré’s publisher, Julien Hamelle, had advised him to prepare a version for full symphony orchestra.

The church orchestra of 1893 had no violin section. The concert version of 1900 added one. In the Sanctus the first and second violins, muted, play a flowing line above the harp’s arpeggios.

The sopranos begin the “Hosanna” softly. As the phrase grows, the harp changes from running notes to chords, and horns and trumpets play a fanfare. Above them the men’s voices sing “Hosanna in excelsis”.

After the brass fanfare comes a diminuendo. The harp arpeggios return, the violas resume their running figures and the choir sings “Sanctus” again, pianissimo. The altos, who have not sung until now, join for the closing prayer.

The boy soprano begins in B♭ major, marked dolce e tranquille (sweetly and calmly), accompanied by the organ alone. The other instruments rest through the opening prayer, “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem”: merciful Lord Jesus, grant them rest.

Women could not sing in the choir at the Madeleine, where Fauré worked. Boys took the upper parts and the Pie Jesu solo. For the concert hall Fauré preferred women in these lines, for their longer breath and adult voices.

At “Dona eis” the melody widens. At “sempiternam requiem” (everlasting rest) it narrows to two alternating notes, while muted violas and cellos keep moving beneath the voice. The organ part is marked sempre legato.

The opening melody returns with woodwind solos around it, marked soft. Its last phrase falls lower than before. At the close the harp plays, the tempo slows (poco rit.), and the voice rises on the final “requiem”.

Louis Aubert, who signed the sleeve note of this recording, recalled singing the Requiem’s solo soprano part at the Madeleine as a boy of twelve, some months after the first performance. On this recording the solo is sung by Denis Thilliez, of the Neuilly choir school.

Violins and violas begin an F major melody. After six instrumental bars the tenors enter with a different melody above it. The violas continue their line, and the basses play plucked notes underneath.

Louis Frémaux and the orchestra recorded the Requiem in Monaco in August 1962. According to the Erato sleeve, the recording took place in the cathedral on 11 August. Canon Henri Carol played the organ.

The other voices join the tenors, and the harmony moves towards the minor. The choral chords change chromatically against the melody in the violas and cellos. The strings keep the same walking pace beneath.

The tenors sing the prayer alone again. F major returns with them, and the violas resume their flowing melody. The other voices rest.

The sopranos hold C on “Lux”. The other voices enter beneath it in six parts, and the same note becomes the third of an A♭ major chord.

On 16 January 1888 Fauré conducted the first version of the Requiem at the Madeleine in Paris, for the funeral of the architect Joseph Lesoufaché. It had five movements. The Offertoire and Libera me were added later.

Fauré’s elder son Philippe wrote that his father composed the Requiem “between two bereavements”. He added that the luceat eis is surely murmured for those who rocked Fauré as a child, and whom Fauré would like to rock in the mysterious beyond.

After a stop, the music resumes at Molto largo. The choir returns to “Requiem aeternam” in D minor, the opening of the whole work, within this movement. The flowing string tune does not return, and low strings hold beneath the voices.

The choir stops. The strings bring back their first melody in D major, a minor third below its original F major. F♯ replaces the F♮ of the Introit, and the organ and pizzicato basses accompany the last phrases.

Cellos and basses play two pizzicato crotchets, rest, then pick up the next bar. Over this repeated pattern the baritone sings “Libera me, Domine” (deliver me, Lord) in a wide-ranging melody with sudden leaps.

In 1877 Fauré wrote Libera me as a separate piece for baritone. In the same year he became choirmaster at the Madeleine. The first Requiem was heard there eleven years later, and the earlier music was added to it in later revisions.

The choir sings “Tremens factus sum ego” (I am made to tremble), its four parts moving together, pianissimo. The lower strings change from pizzicato to arco, and the baritone rests.

The marking changes to Più mosso, and the horns enter fortissimo. The choir sings “Dies illa, dies irae” in chords, and trombones join the brass. Fauré sets the words in six beats to the bar.

Fauré left out the long Dies irae sequence of the Requiem Mass, but its words appear in this movement. Louis Aubert, who sang in the Madeleine choir as a boy, wrote on this recording’s sleeve that it passes “as an indispensable episode”.

After the day of wrath the choir sings “Requiem aeternam”, piano. The 6/4 metre continues, and the strings keep moving underneath.

The opening melody returns in the whole choir, sung in unison by sopranos, altos, tenors and basses. Kruysen sang it alone at the start. The repeated bass pattern is back beneath it.

The baritone sings the opening words once more over quiet repeated chords, and the choir follows pianissimo. In the last bar the strings play arco again and hold a D minor chord under a fermata.

The organ plays quick broken chords in D major. Muted strings hold long notes above it, and the sopranos begin a rising line. There are no brass or woodwinds in this final movement.

The divided tenors and basses join the sopranos on “Jerusalem”, entering pianissimo and growing louder together. The organ continues its broken chords beneath the longer choral notes.

The harp adds rising semiquavers to the organ’s movement. Above them the sopranos sing “Chorus angelorum te suscipiat”, marked dolce. The strings remain muted.

In 1924 the Requiem was performed in its full orchestral version at Fauré’s state funeral in the Madeleine. He had served there for years as choirmaster and organist.

The other voices join the sopranos on “requiem”, pianissimo. Organ and harp continue beneath them as the harmony moves to D major. The last choral chord is held under a fermata.

In 1902 Fauré told the interviewer Louis Aguettant that someone had called his Requiem “a lullaby of death”. He said that this was how he felt death, as “a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness beyond”.