Gabriel Fauré
Requiem, op. 48

Autumn is making its way, gradually infiltrating the still and dazzling afternoons, the unsettling "false-sun" Sundays, and the oppressive gratuitous sweats. The evening arrives early, but never too early, and the sharp fresh scent that even the city can provide on such occasions evokes a strange feeling of sweet and subtle melancholy. It makes you want to share these feelings with someone, feelings few seem to experience, trying desperately to cling to the legs of summer that is slowly but surely moving away.

But a certain kind of understanding, perhaps the deepest one, I believe cannot be found nor expected from anyone; I don't think it makes sense to delude ourselves that others can reflect our feelings without coercion or any kind of pretense. It's in these cases that music, reading, or our deepest and most intimate passions come to our aid, complementing our mood and our temporary perception of the reality in which we are immersed.
Yes, it can be a refuge and a sometimes dangerous one at that, but occasionally it's okay to settle on safe grounds. This hard work we do every day must take a rest at some point, right!?

And tonight I feel like indulging in a Requiem mass. No, no one has died and I don't feel particularly sad either, but this Requiem was written “without reason, for the pleasure of doing so if I may say,” as its composer, Gabriel Fauré, who was born in a small French village in 1845, stated. Fauré also mentioned “It has been noted that this work does not express the terror of death; some have called it a lullaby of the dead. Yet this is how I feel about death: as a joyous deliverance, a longing for happiness in the afterlife and not a painful transition […] Maybe I sought to break away from conventions after all the years I have accompanied funeral services on the organ. I wanted to do something else.”

This music carries with it an abstract and archaic modesty, bringing sorrow and elegance without redundancy and with a sparing use of dramatic outbursts. It narrates death just as it would narrate sleep, like a serene lullaby of finesse and seemingly 18th-century balance.
The introduction is slow and whispered, yet solemn, almost as if to represent a large door slowly opening, gradually revealing the path to “Paradisum.” During the Kyrie, we walk toward this road of redemption, arduous and weighed down by a slow and measured rhythm. Toward the end, a few abrupt organ chords intervene, suddenly contrasting the melody woven by choir and orchestra.

The “Sanctus” is my favorite part, very sweet, where a caress of the strings underscores the choir's phrases, intertwining with them and creating a perfectly measured embrace. Again here, toward the end, there is an organ use that interrupts the piece's slow progression, but it is always a fleeting moment, then calm regains sovereignty. Beautiful is the soprano part in the subsequent “Pie Jesu domine.” Then the choir sings the “Agnus Dei,” the atmosphere becomes increasingly calm and ethereal, accompanying us toward the extreme climax of “In paradisum” where everything is blurred and the choir is a gentle cloak that covers everything, extinguishing this beautiful work in silence.

To best represent this finesse and interiority, I think an excellent interpretation can be heard under the direction of Carlo Maria Giulini, a conductor who magnificently managed to capture Fauré's demure elegance. The album in question is also recommended for the presence of perhaps Fauré's most famous composition, the “Pavane, op. 50” and other works useful for gaining an understanding of Fauré's music.

By the way, just to give a nod to literature, Proust wrote this (among other things) to Fauré in a letter: “Sir, it's not that I like or admire or adore your music: simply, I have been and still am in love with it.[…] I have told you a hundred things less than I could have, I know your work well enough to write a three-hundred-page book, but a hundred things more than I would have told you if I had followed my shyness.”
Surely, this won't be a record that makes you burst with joy, I believe you've already guessed that...