Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48,
between 1887 and 1890. The choral-orchestral setting of
the shortened Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin is
the best-known of his large works. Its focus is on
eternal rest and consolation. Fauré's reasons for
composing the work are unclear, but do not appear to
have had anything to do with the death of his parents
in the mid-1880s. He composed the work in the late
1880s and revised it in the 1890s, finishing it in
1900.
In seven ...(+)
Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48,
between 1887 and 1890. The choral-orchestral setting of
the shortened Catholic Mass for the Dead in Latin is
the best-known of his large works. Its focus is on
eternal rest and consolation. Fauré's reasons for
composing the work are unclear, but do not appear to
have had anything to do with the death of his parents
in the mid-1880s. He composed the work in the late
1880s and revised it in the 1890s, finishing it in
1900.
In seven movements, the work is scored for soprano and
baritone soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ.
Different from typical Requiem settings, the full
sequence Dies irae is omitted, replaced by its section
Pie Jesu. The final movement In Paradisum is based on a
text that is not part of the liturgy of the funeral
mass but of the burial.
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."
Movement 4 of the Requiem is the Pie Jesu Domine (Pious
Lord Jesus). The solo soprano (or treble) sings the
prayer to the "good Jesus" for everlasting rest. The
one line of text is repeated three times, the first two
times asking for "requiem" (rest), then intensified for
"sempiternam requiem" (everlasting rest). The first
call is a modal melody in B-flat major of six measures,
the second call is similar but reaching up higher. The
words "Dona eis, Domine, dona eis requiem" begin with
more expansion, but reach alternating between only two
notes on two repetitions of "sempiternam requiem". The
last call begins as the first and leads again to
alternating between two notes in even lower range,
until the last "requiem" has a gentle upward
motion.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requiem_(Faur%C3%A9)#Pie
_Jesu).
Although originally composed for Choir and Orchestra, I
created this Interpretation for Brass Quartet (Bb
Trumpet, Flugelhorn, French Horn and F Tuba).
SHEET MUSIC