Introduction to The Fauré Requiem

At the beginning of November as the year begins to die, and the leaves fall to the ground in the golden splendour of the autumn. The Church calls us to look beyond this life to its end in death and the hope eternal rest and resurrection to glory. This is All Saints and All Souls tide.

The feast of All Saints kept yesterday celebrates all those holy men and women whose holiness and sanctity was known to God alone and who will never be formally canonised by the Church. Today is All Souls Day when we commemorate all the faithful departed. All those who have left this world to be closer to God on their journey back to him and who are at rest awaiting the glorious resurrection which the saints now enjoy. In our readings between each section of the Faure Requiem we shall take account of the both All Saints and All Souls. We shall reflect upon what the Christian Church teaches about death and resurrection.

The characteristic form of worship and prayer for the dead is of course the Requiem Mass. It is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the souls of all the departed or sometimes for one person. The Mass for the Dead or Missa defunctorum takes the title Requiem from the first words of the Introit.

Requiem eternum, Dona Eis Domine. ‘Grant them eternal rest O Lord’.

The Liturgical Rite of a Requiem Mass is different in some important ways from the Mass as such. The Gloria and credo are omitted. Whilst some texts particular to the Requiem are added. The Introit, Requiem Eternum as I mentioned earlier, the Pie Jesu, the Dies Irae,  the Libera me Domine and the In Paradisum. The latter two are actually from the burial service but are often incorporated by composers into the setting the mass itself.

The particular beauty and indeed drama of the Latin text for the Requiem Mass has attracted the attention of the greatest composers resulting in some wonderful music.

From Ockeghem and Victoria in the Medieval and renaissance period to Mozart in the Classical period, the wonderful dramatic, even operatic, Verdi Requiem, Duruflé and Fauré, and even Lloyd-Webber and Rutter in the modern period.

Fauré wrote his Requiem in D Minor between 1887 and 1890. One possible impetus for composing the Requiem may have been the death of his parents. He wanted his Requiem to proclaim his belief that death is an entry into eternal rest with God through the love and mercy of God and he therefore alters the text somewhat to accommodate this idea. He omits the Dies Irae - the day of wrath, and plays down the whole notion of judgement on the last day, replacing that with the Pie Jesu ‘Sweet Jesus grant them rest eternal’.

The whole tenor and atmosphere of the music points us towards this beautiful idea of death being eternal rest with God. Of this his great work Faure said this: ‘

‘Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.

The Requiem Mass as Faure sets it begins and ends with the word ‘Requiem – Rest’.