Donald Macleod follows the dramatic thread running through Gabriel Fauré's musical output. Today, Fauré takes his first stab at opera; starts an affair; and pimps his Requiem.

When Fauré received his first commission for an opera, to be produced in the summer of 1900, it must have felt long overdue - he'd been on the lookout for a suitable libretto for the previous couple of decades. The invitation came not from a conventional opera house but from the town of Béziers, in the Languedoc, famous for bullfights and wine but with no reputation, thus far, for music-drama. A local bigwig had built an enormous Roman-style amphitheatre there, with the intention of staging open-air operas on themes of classical antiquity to audiences of 10,000. Fauré's lyric tragedy Prométhée, about the Titan who brought fire to mankind, was a huge success. Fire was kindled offstage too, when the 55-year-old Fauré met Marguerite Hasselmans, the 24-year-old daughter of one of his Paris Conservatoire colleagues. A relationship ignited which was to stay alight until Fauré's own flame was extinguished a quarter of a century later. While he was working on Prométhée, Fauré also oversaw the rescoring of his famous Requiem for full orchestra - the version in which it's usually heard today, and which, in time, provided the soundtrack to his own funeral.

Capriccio in E flat (8 pièces brèves, Op 84)
Jean-Philippe Collard, piano

Prométhée (Act 3, Prelude and Chorus of the Oceanides)
Choeur Maîtrise Gabriel Fauré
Orchestre National de l'Opéra de Monte-Carlo
Roger Norrington, conductor

Ballade, Op 19 (version for piano and orchestra)
Valerie Tryon, piano
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Jac Van Steen, conductor

Requiem, Op 48 - version for full orch
(Introit, Kyrie, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, In Paradisum)
Johannette Zomer, soprano
La Chapelle Royale
Collegium Vocale Gent
Orchestre des Champs-Élysées
Philippe Herreweghe, conductor

Producer: Chris Barstow. Show less