This vocal score provides an accompaniment specifically arranged for organ, often on 3 staves, with pedals, making this the ideal vocal score for use in a liturgical performance.

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) began work on his Requiem purely 'for the pleasure of it', although it was quite probably composed in response to the recent death of his father. The subsequent passing of his mother shortly after its first performance gives the work an added poignancy, not least since the Requiem was an evolving work which Fauré continued to revise from its inception in 1887 until the first published version of 1900. In its sequence of movements the Requiem departs significantly from the standard liturgical text. Fauré does not underline the terrors of the Day of Judgement, and specifically includes the response In Paradisum from the Burial Service. Consequently, the prevailing mood is one of peacefulness and serenity.