Gabriel Fauré(1845 – 1924) Requiem Op. 48 Christiane Oelze – soprano
Harry Peeters – baritone
Netherlands Chamber Choir
Limburg Symphony Orchestra, Maastricht
Ed Spanjaard - conductor
PTC 5186 020 DSD recorded
Fauré – Requiem
and other choral works
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845-1924) was the youngest of six children in
an upper middle-class family. His special musical gifts were revealed at an
early age, which led his father to request a scholarship from the ministry
dealing with religious matters for his son to attend the Ecole de musique classique
et religieuse. This was also known as the Ecole Niedermeyer, named after its
founder and principal. The nine-year-old boy was admitted in 1854. Following
11 years of study with teachers including Saint-Saëns, who was still young
at the time, he graduated from the Niedermeyer School in 1865, with the composition
Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11 for choir and piano, dating from 1864.
Immediately following his studies, Fauré was appointed organist of the
Saint-Saveur in Rennes. One year later, the dedication of the new organ of
this church was celebrated with a performance of his Cantique de Jean Racine
in a version for harmonium and string quintet. Many years later, in 1905, Fauré arranged
his Cantique for a larger orchestra. He remained devoted to this early work
for more than forty years, and justly so. The reason for its reputation becomes
apparent immediately upon first hearing: both Racine’s text and Fauré’s
music are simple and noble, with the secular song and the religious motet combined
beautifully, as in many of the composer’s vocal works.
Throughout his entire life, Fauré set great store by exalted and noble
simplicity in his practical approach to music: both as organist in Rennes and
Paris – where he received his appointment at in the Saint-Sulpice in
1871 and at the Madeleine in 1877 – and as a teacher (mainly at the Conservatoire,
where he taught composition from 1896 onwards, and was principal from 1905
to 1920). His most famous pupil there was Maurice Ravel, with whom he shared
a great enthusiasm for the elegant and polished virtuosity of Saint-Saëns’ music.
And with his friend and colleague of many years, Saint-Saëns, he shared
not only a love of Wagner’s operas, but also the role of pioneer in propagating
a typically French style of music. This resulted in 1871 in his founding of
the Société Nationale de Musique, together with composers such
as César Franck, Jules Massenet and Henri Duparc.
Even more than Franck, Saint-Saëns or even Debussy, Fauré’s
music is representative of the culture of France: apparent simplicity and a
strict, clear design result in a predominantly restrained and suppressed passion
and elegant melancholy. This is equally valid with regard to both Fauré’s
piano works and chamber-music compositions (such as his sonatas for violin
and cello, his piano quartets and piano quintets), and to his liturgical and
religious music, which he wrote as a matter of course during his career as
organist.
Fauré’s best-known religious composition is his Requiem, Op. 48,
on which he began work during the course of 1886. During his years at the Madeleine,
he also wrote many shorter works to be performed during the service: such as
the Tantum ergo, Op. 55 for soprano or tenor solo and choir, with accompanying
harp, organ and double-basses, which dates from 1890; and the Ave verum, Op.
65:1 for two female voices or a choir consisting of sopranos and altos with
organ, dating from 1894. The latter work was specially orchestrated by Leo
Samama for this SA-CD. The simplicity in both short works is also characteristic
of large parts of the Requiem.
Apparently, Fauré began writing the first sketches for a requiem shortly
after the death of his father in 1885. However, it was not until January 16,
1888 that a first version of the work was performed at the Madeleine, a few
weeks after the death of his mother. The Requiem consisted at the time of five
parts (“Introït et Kyrie”, “Sanctus”, “Pie
Jesu”, “Agnus Dei”, and “In Paradisum”). It was
scored for male choir, solo soprano, a small string orchestra (without violins),
harp, timpani, organ, and a solo violin in the Sanctus.
The following year, in 1889, Fauré added two more sections to the Requiem:
the “Offertoire” and “Libera me”, which he had written
back in 1877 for baritone and organ. He then orchestrated the composition and
added a mixed choir. In 1893, this longer version was given its première
at the Madeleine, on which occasion the orchestra was also expanded by means
of horns, trumpets and trombones. Seven years later, the version for symphony
orchestra was performed at the Trocadéro. Fauré had prepared
this at the request of his publisher – however, it is generally accepted
that this task was carried out by one of his pupils. This is the most suitable
version for the concert hall, whereas the 1893 version is preferable for performance
in church.
Comparing Fauré’s Requiem to other requiems from the same period,
it becomes apparent that Fauré was not particularly interested in a
dramatic or theatrical vision of death, as provided, for example, by Verdi
in the “Dies Irae” and “Rex tremendae” in his Requiem:
neither is the lamentation of a “Lacrymosa” to be heard. Fauré considered
death more of a happy occasion, a journey to everlasting bliss.
He shares his cheerful, serious, yet equally heartrending approach to death
with another contemporary, namely Brahms in his Deutsches Requiem. Therefore,
Fauré avoided composing a “Dies Irae” and only his “Libera
me” makes a short reference to the Day of Judgement. The entire Requiem
possesses an unusual, indeed almost unearthly lightness and modesty. Throughout
almost the entire work, the music is marked as mezzoforte or softer, with the
exception of the “Libera me”. For Fauré, the extreme confidence
in the eternal rest of death is the pivotal point. As he wrote to his colleague,
Eugène Ysaÿe, in 1900: “The [Requiem] is of as gentle a character
as I am myself.”
As one of the most important French song composers, Fauré naturally
also wrote a number of secular choral works, of which Les Djinns, Op. 12 is
the most surprising. The work dates from 1876. It was Saint-Saëns who
pointed out to Fauré the original poem by Victor Hugo (1802-1885) from
his collection Les orientales (1828). Here, both poetically and graphically,
Hugo follows the augmentation and decline of the action by extending and shortening
the lines during each verse, which leads to a type of crescendo and diminuendo.
This effect is recreated in masterly fashion by Fauré in his composition.
The composer wrote his Madrigal, Op. 35, in 1883, and dedicated the chorus
to his colleague, André Messager. The text by Armand Silvestre (1837-1901),
taken from Les chansons des heures, poésies nouvelles (1878), is a somewhat
ironic commentary on love. The atmosphere – as in a number of works by
Fauré – is rather like a reverie of bygone times.
Similarly, his Pavane, Op. 50, from 1888 is a type of reverie. This composition
is best known in its original orchestral version dating from 1887. However,
a friend of the composer, the Countess Greffuhle, advised him to add a libretto
to the work, suggesting a text by Count Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921).
This situated the Pavane more clearly as a courtly dance in a symbolic framework
of ‘bygone times’, and as such, it was even performed with dancers
in the Bois de Boulogne in 1891.
“This recording surpasses all existing recordings in depth and perspective…Fauré excellsthanks
to the collective effort of choir, orchestra and soloists.” --Huib Ramaer, de Volkskrant
“Those who play the multi channel version of the album on SA-CD equipment
are enveloped by sound which makes you feel happy beyond belief.” --Thiemo Wind, De Telegraaf
“This is the hallmark of a great recording – one that does not
beat you over the head but invites you inside its acoustic framework to share
its delights”. --Rad Bennett, UltraAudio.com
“In cluded with the Requiem on this SA-CD are several of Fauré’s
lesser known smaller choral works. Most notable is a late edition of the
orchestral Pavane to which Fauré has set a poetic text.
Also included is the beautiful anthem Cantique de Jean Racine, performed
here with orchestral accompaniment. Packaged with this excellent performance
of the Requiem, this recording is a wonderful collection of Fauré’s
choral music. --Adam Luebke, Opera Today
