Fauré: Requiem

Gabriel Faure composed his requiem in 1887/8 after a period of intense personal grief. His father had died in 1885, and his mother died two years later. The early version was scored for violas, cellos, organ, harp and timpani.

A later version performed in 1888 had horns and trumpets added. A further development, he added a Libera me, and he made further additions to the orchestration in 1894. It was yet another revision in 1895 that saw the Reqiuem take the form that we know it best today -- with full orchestra.

Compared to the requiems by Mozart, Cherubini, Berlioz and Verdi, Faure's masterpiece is predominantly a serene work. That isn't to say it is without drama, but overall the work has a humanist acknowledgement of suffering rather than an overtly Christian view. The Wagnerian harmonies are restrained by sombre colourings and ancient church modes.

The Requiem is an intensely personal utterance. Charles Koechlin said 'thanks to the overflowing of his heart, Faure has created an aeterna requiem of serene gentleness and consoling hope'


Other information:
- Recording made by Philips in 1985
- Booklet notes
- 'Among recordings of the 'received' text of Fauré's Requiem, Davis's ranks very high indeed, for the subtle beauty of its choral singing, for the sober richness of its orchestral sound and for its marvellously atmospheric acoustic. All these qualities are intensified by CD, and the virtues of Davis's reading are as a consequence still more strongly projected: its solemnity, its firmly controlled gravity of tread, the lovely refinement of its dynamic shadings' Gramophone July 1986