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It was in the sphere of opera above all that Paris dominated European musical culture in the 19th century. But from the start of the preceding century up to the outbreak of the French Revolution, an ecosystem of vocal and instrumental concert life flourished, as epitomized by the public concert series known as the “Concert Spirituel,” which began in 1725. (These concerts tended to be offered during the Lenten season and on other holy days, when the opera houses were required to remain closed—hence the name.)

Born in 1741 (15 years before Mozart), Heinrich Joseph Riegel grew up in a musical family in Wertheim (in what is now southwestern Germany) but became Henri-Joseph Rigel when he moved to Paris in the late 1760s. Rigel arrived equipped with training in the German and Italian traditions and found a post as tutor to a French aristocrat. He soon established a notable presence in Paris’ musical life and became a leading figure at the Concert Spirituel, where two of his oratorios enjoyed extraordinary success. He was also an important teacher, one of the original faculty members of what became the Paris Conservatoire (where Fauré wielded great influence a century later).

Acclaimed by his contemporaries, Rigel initially became known for his solo keyboard music, chamber works, and orchestral compositions, along with sacred vocal works. Later in his career, he turned his focus to the stage, producing some 14 operas. The Symphony in C minor that we hear comes from Rigel’s first published collection of works in this genre, Op. 12, which appeared in 1774.

Paris’ orchestras developed a reputation for excellence that attracted attention far beyond France. Le Concert de la Loge Olympique, for example, which was established in 1781 and performed Rigel’s symphonies, boasted a superb string section with no fewer than 40 violins, easily outnumbering their counterparts in the house orchestra Haydn worked with far to the east at the estate of Prince Esterházy, his patron. (In the 1780s, Haydn would be commissioned to write symphonies specifically for Paris, and the enthusiasm for his music among Parisians pressured Paris-based composers like Rigel into other areas such as opera.) The musicians of the Loge Olympique, who were led by Joseph Bologne, Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, were celebrated for their visual allure as well: their uniforms consisted of bright-blue coats of brocade with lace ruffles, ceremonial swords, and plumed hats.

Rigel’s C minor Symphony is cast in three movements (as is the Mozart symphony we will hear), tracing the fast-slow-fast pattern familiar from the concerto format. The composer’s affinity for opera is perhaps presaged in the dramatic gestures and shading of the opening Allegro assai. Rigel’s stormy, accentuated C minor is full of surprises and reflects a contemporary sensibility. Rigel even anticipates Beethoven—for whom the key of C minor held special meaning—in the theatrically effective manipulation of contrasts between loud and soft.

Rigel was also known for the compelling elegance of his melodies. This trait comes to the fore in the calm grace of the central slow movement, a brief oasis between the tempestuous outer movements. The finale presses forward with lightning-flash virtuosity from the strings and plaintive colorings from the winds and horns.

Instrumentation: Two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, strings.

All told, this adventure expanded into an epic journey that lasted 16 months and took young Mozart to Munich, Augsburg, and Mannheim in addition to Paris. He ultimately had to return to Salzburg and would not break free of his situation there until he left for good in 1781, braving it out as a freelancer in Vienna for the rest of his all-too-short life.

Mozart composed his so-called “Paris” symphony in June 1778 on a commission from the singer and composer Joseph Legros, by then an entrepreneur who had recently become director of the Concert Spirituel. Mozart naturally took account of Parisian musical taste, hoping to enhance his chances to find the post he hoped for. With the Concert Spirituel ensemble’s impressive resources at his disposal, he could experiment with bold, richly orchestrated sonorities. The comparatively large orchestra (with doubled winds, horns, and trumpets) includes clarinets for the first time in a Mozart symphony.

Mozart responds to the Parisian audience’s preference for a powerful opening with four chords in festive D major that are embellished by a surging scale. He ingeniously weaves this motif throughout the movement, using it as both a structural marker and a transition device. Despite his jests about French musical tastes and customs in his letters home, the “Paris” Symphony showcases Mozart’s ability to integrate diverse international styles of his time.

Two different slow movements exist. Legros deemed the first one Mozart showed him to be too lengthy and complex, as the composer reported in a letter to his father Leopold, so he wrote an Andante in its place. The longer first version features a melody of serene poise, while the alternative evokes the innocence of a folk air. The long-standing practice has been to perform the slightly longer movement (in a lilting 6/8). Mozart remarked that “each is good in its own way, for each has a different character.”

Dispensing with the minuet movement typical of the Austro-German-style symphony at the time, Mozart thwarts the audience ’s expectation of another strong and loud opening for the finale by starting off with violins alone, which give way to a sudden outburst from the full ensemble—an almost Haydn-like “surprise” jest. Mozart continues to make the most of his expanded orchestral resources but also shows off his prowess writing vivid counterpoint. As he noted with satisfaction to Leopold, his music was greeted by vociferous applause.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, strings.

Curiously, Fauré did not compose his Requiem to fulfill a particular commission. Whether the idea was at first prompted by the passing of his parents (his father died in 1885, his mother in 1887) is debated. The composer himself declared in a letter: “My Requiem was not written for anything … for pleasure, if I may call it that!” He also described the work as a kind of personal credo—a setting “dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest. It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death. Someone has called it a lullaby of death. But that is how I see death: as a happy deliverance, a yearning for the happiness of the beyond, rather than as a distressing transition.”

Fauré later elucidated his highly personal adaptation of the ancient Roman Catholic ritual: “Maybe I instinctively sought to escape from routine, from what is thought right and proper, after so many years accompanying funeral services at the organ! I wanted to write something different.” He also wondered about his “desire for things that don’t exist, perhaps,” which “is very much the domain of music,” according to biographer Jean-Michel Nectoux. Fauré was at heart “a doubter,” Nectoux concludes, “and the resulting mixture of pessimism and resignation set him apart from the ‘despair’ of the Romantics. Fauré’s attitude was much closer to the ‘spleen’ of Verlaine.” (Indeed, one of his great achievements is his unusual chamber setting of Verlaine’s poetry in the song cycle La bonne cuisine.)

The composition of the Requiem as we know it unfolded over several stages, beginning with a shorter, five-movement work created over a few months in late 1887 into January 1888. Consisting of the Introitus and Kyrie, Sanctus, Pie Jesu, Agnus Dei, and In Paradisum, this compact Requiem was first heard as part of a Parisian architect’s funeral at La Madeleine, the church were the composer maintained a long association as organist. Further revisions followed before the work was again presented in a public performance there in May 1888.

Fauré began expanding the Requiem in 1889. He added two more movements, both of which feature the solo baritone: the Offertory and Libera me (the latter reworking an already existing piece from 1877 for baritone and adding choral parts). This seven-movement Requiem was first heard in 1893, also at La Madeleine. Fauré had to this point scored for very modest forces appropriate to the church setting: along with the two soloists and mixed chorus, a chamber ensemble comprising organ, harp, timpani, brass, and strings (without violins, except for a solo violin in the Sanctus).

The “final” version—which we hear in this performance—was premiered in 1900 during the course of the Exposition Universelle in Paris. For the occasion, Fauré expanded the orchestra to include woodwinds and a full violin section. Nectoux notes that the composer debated with his publisher about the decision to expand the sound world of the piece in this way—making it more marketable for concert performances—and speculates that he delegated this final stage of orchestration to one of his students. Maestro Labadie has chosen the new critical edition of the score, which was published as part of the Ouevres Complètes de Gabriel Fauré by Christina Stahl and Michael Stegemann.

Fauré famously chose to exclude the long Dies irae sequence (except for its final two lines, the Pie Jesu), though this omission was not unprecedented: such French Baroque composers as André Campra likewise did without the Dies irae. Fauré also sets aside the Benedictus, yet he includes the Libera me and, more unusually, In Paradisum, a prayer sung after the Requiem Mass has ended, while the choir accompanies the body on its way to burial.

The Pie Jesu stands at the center of Fauré’s Requiem, the only movement for solo soprano (originally, for boy soprano). The chorus-only movements frame the entire work and also surround the pair of movements sung by the solo baritone. The work opens in D minor, low in the register, with music that recurs near the end of the Agnus Dei. But rather than a feeling of somber, oppressive gloom, Fauré elicits a calm serenity that sets the tone for the entire work.

Fauré’s command of supple French melody graces the score, creating at times a nouveau chant-like effect; at others, the melodic line is refracted through subtly shifted harmonic tints. While he omits the Dies irae sequence, Fauré does refer to the “Day of Judgment” in the Libera me. Tellingly, it is precisely in this movement that he introduces an element of tension—sonically and rhythmically—that provides a foil to the tranquility and beatific arpeggios that have become the work’s signature. This in turn prepares the way for the consoling vision of the final movement. With a transition to D major, Fauré leads us, along with those for whom the prayer is offered, into Paradise.

Instrumentation: Two flutes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, harp, organ, strings