Requiems and Elegies by Faure and Rouse

Synopsis

On this day in 1900, the world first heard the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré in its full orchestral version at a concert at the Paris World Exhibition. Faure’s Requiem ranks today among his best-known and best-loved compositions, and omits all reference to the terrors of the Last Judgment which appear in the traditional liturgical text, concentrating instead on comforting the bereaved. The Requiem was originally written for chorus and a more intimate chamber ensemble, and was occasioned by Fauré’s sorrow at the death of his own father.

The American composer Christopher Rouse has written a number of works dealing with the passing of friends and colleagues — works half-seriously, half-jokingly referred to as Rouse’s Death Cycle. Rouse’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Trombone Concerto from 1991 is dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein; his Symphony No. 2, from 1994, contains a tribute to the young composer Stephen Albert, who died in a car crash; and a section of his Flute Concerto from 1993 reflects the composer’s shock upon reading an account of the senseless tragedy of a two-year-old child, abducted from an English shopping mall and killed by two ten-year-olds.

Los Angeles Times critic Mark Swed has noted that much of Rouse’s work is “music of leave-taking … but it is also a music of catharsis, survival and a celebration of being alive.”

Music Played in Today's Program

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924): Requiem; The Cambridge Singers; John Rutter, conductor; Collegium 101

Christopher Rouse (1949-2019): Symphony No. 2 and Flute Concerto; Carol Wincenc, flute; Houston Symphony; Christoph Eschenbach, conductor; Telarc 80452

On This Day

Births

• 1861 - Russian composer Anton Arensky, in Novgorod. Under the Julian “Old Style” calendar still in use in Russia in that year, this date would be listed as June 30.

• 1885 - English composer George Butterworth, in London. As a British soldier, he was killed during battle of Pozieres in 1916.

• 1895 - American musical theater lyricist Oscar Hammerstein II, in New York. He provided lyrics for Rudolf Friml’s Rose Marie (1924), Siegmund Romberg’s The Desert Song (1926), and Jerome Kern’s Show Boat (1926). He collaborated with Richard Rodgers on several Broadway classics such as Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), and The King and I (1951). He was also the principal mentor of American composer Stephen Sondheim.

Deaths

• 1773 - German composer and flutist, Johann Joachim Quantz, 76, in Postdam

• 1953 - Belgian composer Joseph Jongen, 79, at Sart-lez-Spa

Premieres

• 1716 - Handel: Concerto Grosso No. 4a (Julian date: July 1)

• 1900 - Fauré: Requiem, (orchestrated version) in Paris, at the Paris World Exhibition

• 1922 - Hindemith: Kleine Kammermusik for winds, No. 2, in Cologne (Germany), by the Frankfurt Chamber Winds

• 1940 - Ginastera: ballet Pananbi, in Buenos Aires

• 1946 - Britten: opera The Rape of Lucretia at the Glyndebourne Festival in England

• 1972 - Peter Maxwell Davies: opera, Taverner, in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

• 1976 - Henze: opera, We Come to the River, in London at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

• 1992 - Christopher Rouse: Violin Concerto, at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, by the Aspen Festival Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin, with soloist Cho-Liang Lin

• 1993 - William Bolcom: Violin Sonata No 3, at the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado, with Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin, and the composer at the piano

• 1993 - Andrew Lloyd-Webber: musical Sunset Boulevard, in London. The musical opened in Los Angeles on December 2, 1993, and on Broadway on November 17, 1994.

Others

• 1971 - A touring production of Andrew Lloyd-Webber’s rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar starts a cross-country American run. The musical would open on Broadway on October 12, 1971.