This year on November 6th, St. Stephen will commemorate its faithful departed at our annual service of remembrance. Services like these are held in Christian churches of varied denominations all around the world, typically occurring around the feast of All Saints, at the beginning of November. Halloween is indelibly linked to this feast, as its original monicker – All Hallows’ Eve – attests. In addition to the annual reading of the church necrology, the choir will this year present within the typical framework of the service Gabriel Fauré’s poignant Requiem in a “chamber” version for organ, harp, violin, and cello. I am excited by this for a number of reasons, but none more than the opportunity it affords us to experience a work most generally known through concerts and recordings in its original, liturgical, setting. Fauré composed the Requiem while the Master of Choirs at the Parisian Church of The Madeline – where, incidentally, the great virtuoso and composer Camille Saint-Saens was organist. In its earliest version, the work is very much on a small, “church service” scale, and Fauré was to considerably alter, expand, and orchestrate it over the decade which followed. Regardless of the version (which is somewhat remarkable, considering the grandeur of the version for full orchestra), the piece is imbued with a gentle quality not conventional for the time, but emulated by later disciples (most notably in the unsurpassable Requiem of 20th century organist and composer Maurice Duruflé). It will be a truly special service, and I commend it to you. Please do not miss this special day in the life of St. Stephen!
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