Masterworks concert will feature a beloved work

A MASS FOR THE LIVING

GABRIEL FAURÉ’S REQUIEM

Masterworks Concert–moved to April 1–features beloved work

As the Omicron variant led to an increase in the spread of COVID-19, we’ve made a number of changes to our plans at St. Stephen’s. One of those changes was to reschedule our annual Masterworks Concert which will now be held on Friday, April 1, at 7:00 p.m. We hope very much that we will By Brent te Velde be able to keep this date, but the delay has offered the gift of a bit more time to reflect on the music that we’ve chosen for the program. The centerpiece will be Gabriel Fauré’s exquisite Requiem. While it is today one of the most beloved masterworks of the choral repertoire, it was composed and premiered in a way that was less auspicious, but with an authenticity that has come to truly distinguish it. During a study trip to Paris, I visited the church of La Madeleine to hear its brash and assertive Cavaillé-Coll organ that, with its batteries of horizontally-mounted trumpets, fired down the length of the nave like the cannons of Napoleon’s army, to which the building was originally to have been dedicated. In complete contrast, the high altar at the opposite end of the church is surrounded by a large sculpture of Mary Magdalene—to whom the church came to be dedicated—being raised to heaven by two angels. The long, curved lines of the angels’ wings in white marble form a luminous frame for the altar. I was amazed to learn that the high altar was the setting for the first performance of the Fauré Requiem. The choir and orchestra had surrounded the altar, just under the gaze of the marble figures. Absent any sound, I marveled at the beautiful intimacy of this setting for the first performance of such a great work of music.

Although the death of Fauré’s parents may have given impetus to the composition, Fauré said the Requiem was not written for any particular occasion, but, in his words, “for the pleasure of it.”* In its original version, which he called his “little Requiem,” Fauré chose for his sound palette the warmth and richness of violas, cellos, and string basses; a single violin is included only for its radiant solo line in the Sanctus. Its first performance dignified the funeral of the architect Joseph-Michel le Soufaché, whose work in aristocratic and bourgeois residences would have starkly clashed with the neo-Classical and monumental style of La Madeleine. Fauré had already been a church organist for over 20 years, and, as he knew the funeral mass by heart, he wanted to write something different.

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. ISAIAH 43:1-2