Generous farewell music in St Bavo’s Cathedral 

A year after the performance of Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, chief conductor Alejo Pérez leads the troops of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in that other great Romantic requiem that does not appear to have been written for the liturgy, let alone for a specific occasion. The French composer Gabriel Fauré said himself that he wrote his requiem ‘pour le Plaisir’ [for pleasure]. It became a highly personal and undoubtedly one of his best-known and best-loved compositions. It contains some of the most beautiful pages of 19th-century religious music, with arguably the moving Pie Jesu as the highlight. 

Pérez combines the requiem in a surprising way with two seldom-heard gems: the penetrating Maurerische Trauermusik [Masonic Funeral Music] that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote for two deceased brothers from his masonic lodge; and the beautiful, impressionist cantata La Damoiselle élue by the young Claude Debussy.