Series: Masterworks
Please dim the brightness and silence your device for the duration of the program. Video/audio recording of this performance is prohibited.
Cynthia Johnson — soprano
Janelle Wagoner — soprano
Andrew Owen — bass
Sheri Peck — concertmaster
John Wigal — organ
A free thinker both musically and in matters of spirituality, Gabriel Fauré is widely regarded as the father of modern French music. As a young man he was mentored by Camille Saint-Saëns at the École Niedermeyer, and under his teaching was exposed not only to French church forms but also to the works of a wide range of composers, including Bach, Mozart, Wagner, and Liszt.
A skilled organist who worked as a church musician for 40 years, Fauré “bent the rules to meet his own needs with skill” as a composer. His exploration of seventh and ninth chords and enfolding of chant-like phrases in rich harmonic structures introduced a new subtlety, a power of persuasion that was distinctly French and paved the way for impressionist composers Maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy. In a day when most Requiems foretold anguish and horror with grand orchestral efforts and heroic gestures, Fauré’s take on the Latin Mass for the Dead was a quiet overturning of convention – a revolution in the form of restraint and committedly peaceful outlook.
The earliest version of the Requiem, completed in early 1888, was in fact quite brief. It was comprised of only five sections of the traditional liturgical setting, texts Fauré felt corresponded best with his convictions. What inspired him to compose the Requiem in the first place remains under debate, for though in his own words he began purely “for the pleasure of it,” the death of his father in 1885, followed by his mother two years later, has naturally led many to believe he had an additional impetus.
The opening Introit et Kyrie begins somberly in D minor with a double octave played by the orchestra. The choir enters singing the test in a homorhythmic-like chant, in which the soft singing of the word requiem (rest) blooms into a crescendo of sound on et luceat perpetua (and light perpetual). The mood changes as the tenors enter on a lyrical melody repeating the prayer for rest followed by the sopranos calling sweetly for praise in Jerusalem. After a passage in which all voices exclaim exaudi orationem meam! (hear my prayer!), the kyrie begins almost imperceptibly with all four voices reintroducing the tenor melody first in union, then in parts.
The Offertoire begins with the lower voices weaving delicately in and out of each other in a contrapuntal duet – a quiet, yet passionate plea for salvation from a dark abyss of obscurity. A cantor-type baritone enters singing of intercession on behalf of the dead in Hostias et preces (offerings brought with praises), and the choir returns in full force with the duet from the beginning but in a more elaborate polyphony that shifts from B minor to a more hopeful B major and concludes in an uplifting Amen.
In contrast to the great vocal and instrumental force of most Sanctus movements, Fauré’s setting of the text is spine-tingling and ethereal. Over a wafting cantilena played by a solo violin and harp-like arpeggios evoking images of the celestial city, the sopranos and tenors sing their praise to God like duetting choirs of angels. This call and response grows in intensity until both voices loudly declare Hosanna in excelsis, and the horns enter in a fanfare – a vivid glimpse of a triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
The Pie Jesu in which a single soprano voice calls out to Jesus for everlasting rest is arguably the keystone and crown of the entire piece. “Just as Mozart’s is the only Ave verum corpus, this is the only Pie Jesu,” Camille Saint-Saëns once famously commented. Beginning softly with only the organ accompanying, the solo’s long-breathed, moving phrases reach their climax above a swell of sound from the orchestra.
The Agnus Det et Lux aeterna begins with the strings playing and exquisite melody in the pastoral key of F major, after which the tenors sing a gently lilting melody. The music then changes to a minor key, beginning an anguished chromatic section for full chorus before the tenors again return to restore tranquility. Suddenly, all the other parts drop out as the sopranos enter in unison on lux (light), a single ray out which a luminous harmonic texture emerges. The choir sings a reprise of the introit, but this time it concludes with the consoling Agnus Dei melody at the end of the movement.
The dramatic Libera me movement in which a lone baritone sings a fervent prayer in the face of reckoning stands out as a bit of an anomaly in an otherwise altogether consoling work. The tempo is marked by a throbbing, march-like pulse evoking a heartbeat or progression to the cross. Though the traditional fire and brimstone Dies Irae text is explored in a small passage, the majority is pulled from a responsory sung before burial asking for remission of sins.
The final movement evokes just what the title suggests: In Paradisum, a vision of paradise, the blissful calm of a final rest. The sopranos enter singing a sweet melody over shimmering triads in the orchestra, soon enriched by the entrance of the other voices in harmony. The work ends with the same word it began with, requiem, but this time it is harmonized using a D major chord that fades off into the distance, a brief glimpse of a soul passing into the world beyond.
— Laura Childers (2014)
The Requiem was written in 1985 and dedicated to the memory of my father, who had died the previous year. In writing it, I was influenced and inspired by the example of Fauré. I doubt whether any specific musical resemblances can be traced, but I am sure that Fauré’s Requiem crystallized my thoughts about the kind of Requiem I wanted to write: intimate rather than grandiose, contemplative and lyric rather than dramatic, and ultimately moving towards light rather than darkness – the “lux aeterna” of the closing text. The composition of the Requiem was interrupted by other commitments and by illness. The first complete performance took place in October 1985 (in Dallas, as it happened), and no one, least of all the astonished composer, could have predicted the flood of performances which continued ever since. For me it stands as a clear sign of humanity’s quest for solace and light amidst the darkness and troubles of our age. Art, Andre Gide said, must bear a message of hope – a message which is embedded in the age-old texts of the Requiem Mass, and also in the Burial Service, some of which I have interpolated into the structure of the work, using the incomparably resonant and glorious version from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
— John Rutter
* Concertmaster / Principal
