Mirror of Perfection

Camden Choir

The Camden Choir explores the heights of joy in Richard Blackford’s Mirror of Perfection, which sets the Canticles of St Francis of Assisi, and the depths of sorrow in Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, which focusses on eternal rest and consolation.

Born in 1954, Richard Blackford is one of the pre-eminent concert and media composers in the United Kingdom. After training at the Royal College of Music, he spent some time in Italy as assistant to Hans Werner Henze (1926–2012) and it was there that he discovered the verses of St Francis of Assisi which inspired him to compose his best known work Mirror of Perfection. It was given its first performance at the Royal Festival Hall in February 1997 . His setting of the Canticles of St Francis of Assisi was critically acclaimed as a modern choral classic. Mirror of Perfection is scored for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra, and consists of seven canticles, beginning with the Canticle of the Creatures and ending with the Canticle of Peace.

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) began sketches for his much-loved Requiem in 1887. The first version with five movements was performed in 1888 at the Madeleine in Paris. A revised version, adding two movements (the ‘Offertoire’ and ‘Libera Me’) and a baritone soloist, was premiered in 1893. His final version, first performed in 1900, added more strings and woodwind. It is unclear why Fauré decided to write the Requiem. It was written between 1887 and 1890, during which period both his parents died, but he later declared “My Requiem wasn’t written for anything – for pleasure, if I may call it that!” He also noted “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.”