The Christian miracle by agnostic Fauré: what the “Requiem” is keeping silence about

Abstract

The relevance of the article. Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem is one of the most performed works of this genre in contemporary music practice. It is addressed in concert performances, scientific research and conducting classes. However, it still remains semi-closed for understanding, because the composer’s attitude to death in this work reaches unexpectedly extreme emotions — he declares almost the desirability of death. The purpose is to substantiate the own performing concept of the Requiem by Gabriel Fauré on the basis of contextual, textual and comparative analysis of the musical material, as well as biographical and psychological analysis of the composer’s personality. The methodology. The research was carried out using an integrated approach, in the structure of which the contextual analysis allowed to establish the creative intentions of G. Fauré to write such a Requiem, the textual analysis helped to determine the specifics of certain structures and semantic content of the work, the comparative analysis — to compare the concepts of different versions of the Requiem of Fauré, the method of intonation analysis — to dive into the sign system of the work. The results. The author proposed her own performance concept of the work, which takes into account the composer’s religious and philosophical guidelines, as well as his psychological characteristics against the background of the events of the Franco-Prussian War. The scientific novelty. For the first time, the study provides a detailed analysis of the semantic content of the work, deciphering the principles of the composer’s creative method in working on the funeral text. The practical significance. The materials of the article can be useful in the practical activities of conductors, soloists and choristers, as well as in the educational process of training conductors, choirmasters and vocalists. Conclusions. It has been determined that Gabriel Fauré’s interpretation of the canonical text (with the changes corresponding to the Parisian rite) is based not so much on his personal drama of losing his parents, as it was previously believed, but on his attitude to death, formed by the events of the Franco-Prussian War. It has been determined that the main idea of the Requiem is a great feeling of love and compassion for a man who is forced to fight for his life, killing his own kind and who deserves peace. In this, Fauré seems to depart from the concept of the Catholic Requiem with its traditional “pedagogical intimidation” with pictures of the Last Judgment, and approaches the concept of the Orthodox funeral service with its repentance and hope for God’s mercy.