Summer Concert 2024

New Tottenham Singers proudly present

A Summer Serenade

Saturday 20^th July 2024

Organ: Stephen Disley                          Musical Director: Tom Fowkes

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The members of New Tottenham Singers appearing tonight are:

Membership of New Tottenham Singers is on a non-audition basis and rehearsals are every Tuesday in term time, 7.30-9.30pm at Earlsmead Primary School, Broad Lane, N15 4PW. Explore our website, email us at info@tottenhamsingers.com for more information.

New season starts on Tuesday 3rd September 2024.

About Faure’s Requiem by Tom Fowkes:

Paris 1856, the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse (School of Classical and Religious Music), where a 9-year-old Gabriel Fauré was enrolled with the help of a diocesan scholarship to cover his fees and boarding costs. His formative teachers included the school’s founder, Louis Niedermeyer, alongside various other tutors for organ, counterpoint and harmony. In keeping with the school’s ethos and mission to produce qualified organists and choirmasters to fulfil liturgical positions, the young Fauré was being exposed to church music at a high level, but with little insight to music outside of this repertoire. All this changed when Niedermeyer died in 1861 and Camille Saint-Saëns (of Carnival of the Animals fame) replaced him, becoming the now 16-year-old Fauré’s piano tutor and introduced repertoire by composers such as Schumann, Liszt and Wagner. His relationship with and admiration for Saint-Saëns, with whom he remained friends until the end of Saint-Saëns’ life in 1921, had a profound effect on Fauré’s creative abilities, and he left the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in 1865 with a plethora of qualifications and composition prizes, including a Premier Prix for his Cantique de Jean Racine, a firm favourite of the NTS back catalogue.

Fauré’s friendship with Saint-Saëns proved pivotal to his early career, with his former tutor and friend frequently saving the somewhat tempestuous youth from his self-inflicted difficulties on several occasions. After leaving school, Fauré had been appointed organist at the Église Saint-Sauveur in Rennes, Brittany, but the Parish Priest (correctly) doubted Fauré’s religious convictions, exemplified by the young organist frequently slipping out of church for a cigarette or two during the sermon. He was finally asked to resign after presenting himself for Sunday morning Mass still wearing his evening clothes having been out all night at a ball, at which point Saint-Saëns made swift and discreet arrangements for the disgraced Fauré to be appointed at the Église Notre-Dame de Clignancourt in a northern suburb of Paris, but he volunteered for military service shortly afterwards to fight in the Franco-Prussian War. When France lost the conflict to Prussia, Fauré managed to escape the country to Switzerland, taking up a position at his alma mater École de Musique Classique et Religieuse under its simpler name the École Niedermeyer, which had temporarily relocated to avoid the violence of Paris at the time. Throughout this entire period, Saint-Saëns continually encouraged Fauré to prioritise and pursue composition, and again helped him return to Paris in 1871 with an appointment as choirmaster at the Église Saint-Sulpice under Charles-Marie Widor – a position later to be filled by Louis Vierne. Three years later in 1874, Saint-Saëns appointed Fauré to be his deputy at the Église de la Madeleine, a short walk from the Paris Opera House of Phantom fame, now known as the Palais Garnier to distinguish it from the newer Opéra Bastille.

It was here at La Madeleine that Fauré wrote his Requiem in D Minor, giving its first performance on 16^th January 1888 at the funeral of an architect named Joseph Lesoufaché. The motivation for composing a Requiem has never been conclusively confirmed; many scholars are convinced that the death of Fauré’s father in 1885 provided the primary impetus, yet Fauré himself insists it was not written for anything in particular, but ‘for pleasure’. Whatever the reason for its creation, the original Requiem of 1888 comprised only five movements – Introit and Kyrie, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei and In Paradisum – and was scored for a small orchestra of strings, harp and timpani supplementing the organ. It is worth noting that Fauré’s relationship with the church, or at least the clergy, remained strained even at La Madeleine where, following this performance, he was informed by the Parish Priest that, “We don’t need all these novelties: the Madeleine’s repertoire is quite rich enough.” Despite this, Fauré continued to develop his Requiem undeterred over the following years with the addition of a Hostias for baritone solo in 1889. He had previously written another standalone piece for baritone solo called Libera Me in 1877 which he then expanded and incorporated into the Requiem in 1890, at which point he also developed his existing Hostias by embracing it within new material, thus creating the Offertoire, and this complete seven-movement version which we recognise today was performed at La Madeleine on 21^st January 1893.

This was an innovative Requiem, and marked a departure from the traditions and emphases of the church at the time. Much of the text used within a Requiem Mass was removed or shortened, especially those moments that focus on suffering, pain or punishment, providing a far more gentle and almost humanist interpretation of death and grief. Gone were the great dramatic and extended moments from Mozart’s gothic setting or indeed Verdi’s immensely operatic version (premièred the same year Fauré moved to La Madeleine); Fauré chose the material that spoke to his less religiously devout persuasions and the sound world he was creating to communicate his peaceful, loving message. The possible precedent for this may have been Brahms’ German Requiem of 1869 which set Lutheran texts selected by the composer, but Brahms was openly writing primarily for a performance context, whereas Fauré fully intended his Requiem for liturgical use. The In Paradisum came not from the Requiem Mass but from the burial service, and it is this final notion of the contented soul in paradise that exemplifies the consolation of Fauré’s interpretation, reflecting the kindness of whatever his personal faith may have been which he described as ‘a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest’. “It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.”

However, whilst the vocal parts and accompaniment were now complete, there was still the matter of orchestrating the piece. In 1888, we believe that Fauré himself added some horns and trumpets to his original five-movement version, and in 1893 he declared a full score and parts to be fully completed and ready for publication. Sadly, this contract fell through and, as a result, the new score prepared by Fauré appears to have been lost. The full score that was finally published in 1900 became the standard version used thereafter, but this work is not without issues and idiosyncrasies. Whilst the lower string parts (violas, celli and basses) appear to be consistent with earlier manuscripts, the unusual trumpets in F are only employed for short periods in two movements, and flutes and clarinets are scored solely in the Pie Jesu. Indeed, there is much debate over whether this is indeed Fauré’s work, especially given the amount of unnecessary doubling in the horn parts, or whether he passed earlier manuscripts to others for them to prepare on behalf of the publisher, Joseph Hamelle, who wanted a version suitable for concert rather than liturgical use. To make matters worse, the original manuscript for this publication has again been lost, and the published version is full of errors and inconsistencies between score and parts.

This catalogue of questions has led scholars and composers to investigate possible alternative instrumentations and orchestrations, with several attempts to reconstruct Fauré’s earlier intentions. The surviving manuscript in Fauré’s hand from 1893 appears not to be the ‘clean’ version he had declared for publication, but a version thereof with extensive overwriting with extra horns and the addition of two bassoons; it is therefore unclear when or why such additions were made. It was ultimately the British composer and scholar John Rutter (of Christmas Carol notoriety and the composer of the magnificent Gloria that NTS performed in 2023 and earlier in 2024) who produced the only fully useable 1893 version of the Fauré Requiem. There was another full 1893 version score produced by Jean-Michel Nectoux, alongside a revised 1900 version, which can in many ways claim to be better informed than Rutter’s version given Nectoux had access to original source material unavailable to Rutter, but no publisher has provided a set of parts for actual performance, leaving the conductor with the option of (purportedly) Fauré’s 1900 version or Rutter’s so-called 1893 version. Both have their merits, and both have failings, but Rutter’s clever preparation of a small ‘essential’ instrumentation of 2 horns, solo violin, violas, celli, basses, harp and organ alongside optional or ‘dispensable’ parts for 2 bassoons, 2 extra horns, 2 trumpets and timpani seems to accurately reflect the chamber character of Fauré’s sometimes conflicting notes from 1893, whilst providing options to enhance the texture as both size of venue and budget allows in a practical and informed manner. In any event, Rutter’s interest in and dedication to this extensive research and search for answers, demonstrates his affection for Fauré’s work and the vast influence it has had on his own composition.

For my own part, I wonder whether the very original five-movement orchestration (reconstructed for all seven movements for a Naxos recording) is perhaps overlooked, and wonder if the 1888 instrumentation provides more insight than is often credited. In this format, the strings and harp provide the texture with a cushion of sound that supports the voices, but the colours which would usually come from brass and woodwind in the orchestra are given instead to the organ. Indeed, other than irreplicable percussive moments from the timpani, the organ is clearly the source of expression and luminosity, and one cannot help but imagine this is by design rather than chance. I suggest that part of the original concept of this Requiem was to be a vehicle through which to demonstrate the range, power and ability of the great Cavaillé-Coll instrument installed at La Madeleine in 1845. This was no chamber instrument to support a baroque ensemble, it was a fully functional orchestral palate at the fingertips (and feet) of the organist, and Paris was immensely proud of these immense instruments of French musical grandeur being built in the city’s major churches. Fauré’s admiration for Saint-Saëns has already been documented, and again I find it not entirely circumstantial that Fauré’s Requiem came only two years after Saint-Saëns premièred his Organ Symphony, in which he again demonstrates the instrument’s ability to both supplement, enhance and, at times, dominate an entire orchestra. As such, I have no hesitation in presenting performances of Fauré’s Requiem solely with organ accompaniment, whereas I would not do the same for the other great choral works where the orchestra and the composer’s orchestration is equally as important as the vocal material. 

It is with greatest pleasure that we present tonight’s programme. On the musical team, we are blessed to have former Southwark Cathedral organist Stephen Disley with us to put the historic Hill organ through its paces, and whilst on this occasion we are not presenting the full orchestrated version detailed above, we hope that you enjoy an evening of music here at St Mary’s and would like to express our gratitude to Father Lee Clark and all at the Parish for use of the church this evening.