The Colorado Chorale’s online performance of the Fauré Requiem can be accessed here.
About the Fauré Requiem
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was a French impressionist composer, organist, pianist, and teacher. Among his students were Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger. Fauré himself was a student of composer Camille Saint-Saëns .
Other familiar works by Fauré are Pavane, Apres un Reve, and one of the Chorale’s favorites, Cantique de Jean Racine.
According to Brittannica.com, Fauré
delighted in infusing those [traditional forms] with a mélange of harmonic daring and a freshness of invention. One of the most striking features of his style was his fondness for daring harmonic progressions and sudden modulations, invariably carried out with supreme elegance and a deceptive air of simplicity.
You will hear that supreme elegance in Fauré’s Requiem, a lament for the dead which has been compared to a lullaby.
It varies from the traditional requiem form in having just seven movements: Introit and Kyrie, Offertorium, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, Libera Me and In Paradisum. Fauré began the piece after the death of his father, and finished it after his mother’s death. It was performed at Fauré’s funeral.
The Colorado Chorale presents this work in honor of all those who were lost or who lost loved ones during the Covid crisis.