Requiems for Easter in Palma

French composer Gabriel Fauré's Requiem is a work which, in its entirety, took three years.

Based on the Mass for the Dead, it is believed that he was inspired to compose the Requiem following the death of his father in 1885 and his mother's death in 1887. He himself was to say: "My Requiem wasn't written for anything - for pleasure, if I may call it that."

The initial version premiered in January 1888; it was for the funeral of an architect, Joseph Lesoufaché. The second version was eventually performed for the first time in January 1893. Comprising seven movements, Fauré scored the work for soprano and baritone soloists. In so doing, he was aware that there might be objections from church authorities to female sopranos. There were, and so boys had to take the roles.

One of his best-known works, he responded to criticism from some quarters that it wasn't gloomy enough. "But this is how I see death - as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above rather than as a painful experience."

There is now of course no issue with there being female sopranos, and so Rosa Bonet is the soprano alongside Gabriel Mas (baritone) for the performance of the Requiem at the Sant Francesc Basilica. The Orfeó Balear provides the choral work, with the music from the Orquestra Camerata Balear.

Mozart's Requiem was uncompleted at the time of his death in 1791. Another Austrian composer, Franz Xaver Süssmayr, completed it the following year. There was something of an outcry about the Requiem, not its composition but its commissioning. This was by Count Franz von Walsegg, an amateur musician who sought to try and pass it off as his own work.

There has also long been debate as to how much of the Requiem Mozart actually composed as well as a theory that Mozart came to believe that he was writing a Requiem for his own funeral. An intriguing work, one might suggest, and it is being performed at the Cathedral - the Balearic Symphony Orchestra with the university and Cathedral choirs plus soloists.

On Saturday, March 23 at 8.45pm it will be held at Sant Francesc Basilica, Plaça Sant Francesc in Palma. Tickets are 15 euros at ticketib.com