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Written between 1887 and 1890, the Requiem<\/a> in D minor is one of the very best-known works by French composer Gabriel Faur\u00e9<\/a><\/strong>. A long career as a church organist accompanying the burial services of countless Parisians left the composer with a more philosophical attitude to death.<\/strong><\/p> He described his Requiem as having \u2018a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest\u2019, and indeed, its remarkable modesty and unusual tenderness provide a stark contrast to the grandiloquent solemnity that defines so many other Requiem settings. This is not the fire-and-brimstone worlds of the Requiems of Mozart<\/a><\/strong> or Verdi<\/a><\/strong>, but something far more serene and accepting. As such, among all the Requiems, it’s probably closer to the reflective mood of Brahms<\/a><\/strong>‘s Ein Deutsches Requiem<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (A German Requiem<\/em>).<\/p> The omission of a \u2018Dies Irae\u2019 is telling of his attempt to do something different, and two of the final seven movements \u2013 \u2018Hostias\u2019 and \u2018Libera me<\/a><\/strong>\u2019 \u2013 weren\u2019t added until 1893. A fully orchestrated version was finally published in 1901, and the debate over the \u2018correct\u2019 interpretation continues to this day.<\/p>