A Holy Week musical treat is being performed for the Anchorage community on Sunday, March 28, 4 pm. The St. John UMC Sanctuary Choir, conducted by Karen Horton, will be presenting the Faure’ Requiem, at St. John’s beautiful church. An orchestral ensemble of local professional musicians will accompany the choir. This concert is presented in honor of the life of Betty Gartner, a lifelong Methodist, who loved to sing in choirs believing music is integral to worship, touching people in ways words do not. Betty was the mother of St. John’s Sandy Langland, who with her husband Marc, has made this Requiem possible through a generous donation. A reception will follow the program.[img_assist|nid=150871|title=Stained Glass – Sacre Coeur – Paris|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=306|height=490]

A short piece, taking approximately 35 minutes to perform, the Faure’ Requiem is considered by many to be one of the most beautiful of the requiems. Faure’ in a 1902 interview commented on his requiem.
“It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticized for its overinclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist’s nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different.”

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