Symphoniker Hamburg / Europa Chor Akademie Görlitz / Sylvain Cambreling

And Haydn’s Symphony No. 49 in F minor is likewise turbulent in spirit: he composed it in 1768, but it was only given the nickname »La passione« much later, and there have been claims that Haydn wrote the work »in response to a death among his immediate friends that upset him greatly«. There is nothing to prove his, but the music itself does suggest such associations, with sudden dynamic and rhythmic contrasts stirring up the otherwise peaceful score.

In this evening’s final work, Paradise beckons. Gabriel Fauré wrote his magnificent Requiem in memory of his deceased parents. This important work is different from all the other settings of the Latin mass for the dead. It embodies a gentle revolution, a death without the sting of the Last Judgement, without fear and terror, culminating instead in a much more placatory promise: Paradise as a place of peace and love. Fauré himself remarked that his Requiem was a »tender« piece.