On the occasion of Gabriel Fauré’s centenary in 2024, the Aedes ensemble will perform his Requiem, a universally acclaimed work that captivated audiences at its premiere in 1893. It is this original version that Aedes and Les Siècles, conducted by Mathieu Romano, will perform on historic instruments.

Alongside this serene requiem, evoking the afterlife from a happy perspective, the audience will discover two interwoven works by Paschal de L’Estocart, a Renaissance composer whose highly personal musical style reveals profound metaphysical resonances. His Octogénaires de la vanité du monde, based on the poem by La Roche-Chandieu, is a meditative pause in a spiritual journey that highlights composers driven as much by a sense of intense faith as by the aspiration to greater freedom.

The program opens with Francis Poulenc’s emblematic work Figure Humaine, interspersed with André Jolivet’s Interludes pour Orgues. A masterpiece of vocal music, composed in secret during the German Occupation, premièred in 1945, and culminating in a setting of Paul Éluard’s overwhelmingly moving hymn to Liberty.

André Jolivet, Cinq interludes pour orgue (Nos 1, 2, 3 et 4)
Francis Poulenc, Figure Humaine
Paschal de L’Estocart, Octonaires de la vanité du monde
Gabriel Fauré, Requiem

Roxane Chalard, soprano
Mathieu Dubroca, baritone
Ensemble Aedes
Les Siècles
Mathieu Romano, conductor

Fauré’s Requiem and Figure Humaine, released on CD in 2019 (Aparté), have been enthusiastically received by audiences and critics (ffff Télérama, 5 Diapasons, ***** Classica) : more about