The second work performed was Requiem, Op. Gabriel Urbain Faure, a modern French composer, organist, and teacher, was born in Pamiers, France on May 12, 1845. His early life was filled with music, as he was educated at the Ecole Niedermeyer, an establishment designed primarily for the training of church musicians. Once he left school, he took a series of positions as a church organists throughout France. Eventually, he was appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire, where Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulancer were among his pupils. In 1905 he became director of the Conservatoire - a post which he held until his retirement in 1920. Faure died in Paris in 1924. .
Faure began to be recognized as a composer during his years as a church organist. Some of his works include the Ballade for Piano and Orchestra (1881), the suite Pelléas et Mélisande, the song cycles La bonne chanson (1891-92) and L'horizon chimérique (1922), the opera Pénélope (1913), and much piano and chamber music. His works consisted of mainly small pieces, such as songs and short piano compositions, although he did compose a few longer works. Of these longer pieces the best known is probably the Requiem Mass, which Faure composed between 1886 and 1890. Faure centered his work around the idea of death as a joyous experience, which sets his musical mass for the dead apart from many of the others of the same era. The work consists of seven movements, including the Introit and Kyrie, Offertory, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, Libera me, and In Paradisum. Although the work was not received well initially, it gained popularity during his lifetime and continues to do so today. .
The opening of "Cantata Misericordium- is very dramatic. The loud chord sounds almost like a warning, the timpani gives a sense of foreboding. The music in this piece very closely follows the words.
