Faure Requiem and other pieces: June 2019

Cantique de Jean Racine                                                                    Gabriel Fauré
Cantique de Jean Racine (Chant by Jean Racine) is a composition for mixed choir and piano or organ. The text "Verbe égal au Très-Haut" (Word, one with the Highest), is a French paraphrase by Jean Racine of a Latin hymn used in a service of morning prayer. The nineteen-year-old composer set the text in 1864–65 for a composition competition in Paris and he won first prize. The work was first performed in 1866 and the style shows similarities with his later and largest choral work, Requiem.

Ubi Caritas                                                                                         Maurice Duruflé
Maurice Duruflé was an organist and composer who was very much influenced by Gregorian chant and the music of Gabriel Fauré. Duruflé composed a set of four motets on plainsong themes; of the four, Ubi Caritas is the most well-known.
 
Where charity and love are, God is there. Love of Christ has gathered us into one.
Let us rejoice in Him and be glad. Let us fear, and let us love the living God.
And from a sincere heart let us love one. Where charity and love are, God is there.
 
Chorale no. 1 in E                                                                              César Franck
Franck’s Three Chorales of 1890 are his final works and they represent the summit of his creative genius at the organ. According to Franck himself, the main theme of the first Chorale, in E major, “creates itself as the form progresses”. The choral theme is followed by three variations, separated by short sections with contrasting musical material, and after a lengthy development come to a final statement of the main theme.

Panis Angelicus                                                                                  César Franck
This motet by César Franck can be sung with solo voices alternating with the choir. In this version it is sung by the choir alone.

May the bread of angels become bread for mankind; The bread of Heaven puts all foreshadowings to an end; Oh, thing miraculous! The body of the Lord will nourish the poor, the servile, and the humble.

O Divine Redeemer                                                                           Charles Gounod
Best known for his opera Faust and his Ave Maria based on the music of Bach, Gounod’s musical style strongly influenced the younger school of composers including Gabriel Fauré.
Ah! Turn me not away, Receive me tho' unworthy; Hear Thou my cry,
Behold, Lord, my distress! Answer me from thy throne. Haste thee, Lord to mine aid,
Thy pity shew in my deep anguish! Let not the sword of vengeance smite me,
Though righteous thine anger, O Lord! Shield me in danger, O regard me!
On thee, Lord, alone will I call. O Divine Redeemer! I pray thee, grant me pardon,
and remember not, remember not my sins! Forgive me, O Divine Redeemer!
Night gathers round my soul; Fearful, I cry to thee; Come to mine aid, O Lord!
Haste thee, Lord, haste to help me! Hear my cry! Save me Lord in Thy mercy;
Come and save me O Lord. Save, in the day of retribution,
From death shield Thou me, O my God! O Divine Redeemer, have mercy!
Help me, my Saviour!
 
Requiem                                                                                             Gabriel Fauré
Requiem is by far the largest of Gabriel Fauré’s choral works. Fauré wrote of the work, "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 has seven movements:

1. lntroitus – Kyrie
2. Offertorium
3. Sanctus
4. Pie ]esu
5. Agnus Dei
6. Libera me
7. In Paradisum