Gabriel Faure
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (Pamiers, France, May 12, 1845 - Paris, November 4, 1924) was a French composer, educator, organist and pianist. Fauré is considered one of the foremost French composers of his generation and his musical style influenced many composers of the 20th century . Among his best-known works are the Pavana , the Requiem , the nocturnes for piano and the songs “Après un rêve” and “Clair de lune”. Although his best-known and most accessible compositions to the general public are generally those of his early years, Fauré composed much of his most critically-appreciated work late in his career, in a harmonic and compelling style. melodically more complex.
He was born into a cultured family but with no particular fondness for music, and he demonstrated his talent for composition when he was just a child. He was sent to the Niedermeyer music school in Paris, where he trained to be a church organist and choir director. Among his mentors was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became his lifelong friend. After graduating in 1865, Fauré made a modest living as an organist and teacher, leaving him little time to compose.
When he achieved success and held the important positions of organist at the Madeleine church and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he hardly had time to compose; During the summer vacations, he retired to the countryside to dedicate himself to this task. In his later years, Fauré was recognized in France as the most important French composer of his day.
In 1922 an unprecedented national musical tribute was paid to him in Paris, led by then-President Alexandre Millerand. Fauré had some admirers in England but his music, while well known in other countries, took decades to become widely accepted.
His legacy has been described as the link between late Romanticism and Modernism in the second quarter of the XX century. When he was born, Frédéric Chopin was still composing, and at the time of his death, styles such as jazz and the atonal music of the Second Viennese School were being heard. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, which describes him as the most advanced composer of his generation in France, indicates that his harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the teaching of musical harmony for generations. coming Contrasting with the charm of his early works, his later compositions, written when his deafness was increasing, are considered vague and introverted and, at other times, agitated and passionate.
Biography
Early Years
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, France, on May 12, 1845, being the fifth of the six children born to the marriage between Toussaint-Honoré Fauré (1810-85) and Marie-Antoinette -Hélène Lalène-Laprade (1809-1887). According to biographer Jean-Michel Nectoux, the Fauré family—pronounced "Faoure" in the local dialect—dated from the XIII in that part of France. Members of the family were formerly significant landowners, but around the XIX their economic means were reduced. The composer's paternal grandfather, Gabriel, was a butcher whose son became a schoolteacher. In 1829, Fauré's parents were married. His mother was the daughter of a minor member of the nobility. Gabriel was the only one of the six children of the marriage who showed musical talent. His four brothers all pursued careers in journalism, politics, the military and public administration, and his sister led a traditional life as the wife of a public official.
He was sent to live with a wet nurse until he was four years old. In 1849, his father obtained the position of director of the Ecole Normale de Foix, in the Montgauzy neighborhood, allowing Fauré to return to live with his family. There was a chapel attached to the school, in which the young Fauré spent hours playing the harmonium:
I grew up, being a quiet child of good behavior, in an area of great beauty [...] But the only thing I really remember is the Armon in that little chapel. Every time I could get out, I ran over there and entertained [...] He played atrociously [...] without any method, completely without technique, but I remember that he was happy; and if that is what it means to have vocation, then it is a very pleasant thing.
Fauré recalled that in the chapel an old blind woman gave him basic advice. But the normal school had a piano and its students received rudiments of musical training, so it is very likely that someone from the school taught him how to place his fingers on the keyboard. Years later, the music teacher Bernard Delgay claimed to have been Fauré's first music teacher. In 1853, Dufaur de Saubiac, an official in the French National Assembly, overheard Fauré and advised his father to send him to the Music School that Louis Niedermeyer was establishing in Paris. After pondering for a year, Fauré's father agreed and took the boy, then 9 years old, to Paris in October 1854.
Fauré continued as a student at the school for eleven years, during which he was financially supported by a scholarship granted by the bishop of his diocese. The school regime was austere, the rooms gloomy, the food mediocre, and the young people they were required to wear an elaborate uniform. Music instruction, however, was excellent. Under Niedermeyer, the curriculum was centered on religious music, in order to produce competent, focused organists, chapel masters, and choir directors. in sacred music. Fauré received lessons from the following teachers: Clément Loret, organ; Pierre-Louis Dietsch, for harmony; Xavier Wackenthaler, counterpoint and fugue; while the piano, plainchant and composition classes fell on Niedermeyer himself.
After Niedermeyer's death in March 1861, it was Camille Saint-Saëns who took his place in charge of piano studies and introduced contemporary music, including works by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner., Fauré would remember the role it played in his musical career:
Letting the class time spread more than stipulated, he went to the piano and revealed to us those works of the teachers that we had no access for the rigor of the classical nature of our study program and that, in those years so far away, they knew little [...] At that time I was 15 or 16 years old, and from that time the almost filial attachment [...] the immense admiration, the incessant gratitude I have had for him, throughout my life.
Saint-Saëns enthusiastically followed the progress of the young Fauré, helping him whenever he could. Nectoux states that at every stage of Fauré's career "the influence that Saint-Saëns exerted can be taken for granted". The close friendship between the two lasted until Saint-Saëns's death six decades later. Fauré won multiple awards at school, including the premiers prix for the composition of Cantique de Jean Racine, Op. 11, the first of his choral works to form part of his regular repertoire. the school in July 1865 as Laureat in organ, piano, harmony and composition and with a diploma as Maître de Chapelle.
First musical charges
Upon leaving the École Niedermeyer, Fauré was appointed chief organist of the church of Saint-Sauveur, in Rennes, Brittany. He took office in 1866. During his four years there, he also devoted himself to instructing private pupils to whom he gave "innumerable piano lessons". At Saint-Saëns's regular urging he continued to compose, but none of his works this period is preserved. Fauré, however, was bored in Rennes and had a difficult relationship with the parish priest, who doubted Fauré's religious conviction. Fauré was regularly seen sneaking out of sermons to smoke a cigarette, and At the beginning of 1870, when he arrived one Sunday to play mass still dressed in gala dress from having been at a ball all night, they demanded his resignation. Soon after, with the discreet intercession of Saint-Saëns, he obtained the position of assistant organist at the church of Notre-Dame de Clignancourt, located north of Paris. He stayed there for only a few months. After the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, he volunteered for military service. He took part in the siege of Paris and fought at Le Bourget, Champigny and Créteil.He was awarded the Croix de Guerre .
After the defeat of France by Prussia, there was a brief and bloody conflict in Paris from March to May 1871, during the Commune. Fauré escaped to Rambouillet, where one of his brothers lived, and then traveled to Switzerland where he was a professor at the École Niedermeyer, who had temporarily relocated to that country to avoid violence in Paris. His first student at the school was André Messager, who would become a lifelong friend and occasional collaborator of his. Fauré's compositions of this period did not overtly reflect turmoil and bloodshed. Some of his colleagues, including Saint-Saëns, Charles Gounod, and César Franck, wrote and published patriotic elegies and odes. Fauré was not in favor of this idea, however, according to his biographer Jessica Duchen, "his music acquired a more somber and pessimistic atmosphere, a sense of tragedy with dark tones [...] appreciable above all in his songs of this period, such as L'Absent, Seule! and La Chanson du pêcheur”.
When Fauré returned to Paris in October 1871, he was appointed choirmaster at the church of Saint-Sulpice, under the direction of composer and organist Charles-Marie Widor. In the exercise of his functions, he wrote several canticles and motets, some of which have survived. In some services, Widor and Fauré improvised simultaneously on two church organs, trying to catch up with each other with sudden key changes. Saëns and Pauline Viardot-García, whom Saint-Saëns himself introduced him to.
He was a founding member of the Société Nationale de Musique, formed in February 1871 under the joint presidency of Romain Bussine and Saint-Saëns, in order to promote new French music. Other participating members included Georges Bizet, Emmanuel Chabrier, Henri Duparc, Vincent d'Indy, César Franck, Édouard Lalo and Jules Massenet. Fauré became secretary of the society in 1874. Many of his works were first performed at the society's concerts.
In 1874, Fauré moved from Saint-Sulpice to the Madeleine church as deputy for the principal organist, Saint-Saëns, in the absence of the latter when he was on concert tours. Some admirers of the music of Fauré lamented the fact that, although he devoted himself professionally to the organ for four decades, he left no compositions for the solo instrument. Saint-Saëns commented that Fauré "was a first-class organist when he set his mind to it", and was recognized by his improvisations. However, he preferred the piano over the organ, which he only played because it provided him with a regular income.
According to Nectoux, the Clercs were the understanding family that Fauré did not have during his time at the Niedermeyer school. Camille Clerc, an engineer from the École polytechnique, during the summer organized private concerts attended by important musicians such as Joseph Hollmann, Gustav Friedrich and Hubert Léonard, and Fauré himself. These types of events were not only reserved for musicians, but also for other types of renowned people even without being music professionals. This area of influence allowed Fauré to get multiple recommendations at musical events, which stimulated him and gave him more experience in his work.
1877 was an important year for Fauré, both personally and professionally. In January, his first violin sonata was performed in concert at the Société Nationale to great acclaim, marking a turning point in his career as composer at age 39. Nectoux considers the piece the composer's first masterpiece. In March, Saint-Saëns retired from his post at the Madeleine and was succeeded as organist by Théodore Dubois, then choirmaster; Fauré took over from Dubois. In July, Fauré became engaged to Pauline Viardot-García's daughter, Marianne, with whom he was deeply in love. For reasons not entirely clear, his fiancée broke off the engagement in November of that year., causing him great sadness. Trying to distract Fauré, Saint-Saëns took him to Weimar and introduced him to Franz Liszt. This visit aroused the musician's interest in traveling abroad, which he would continue to do for the rest of his life.From 1878, Fauré and Messager embarked on trips abroad to see Wagner operas. They saw works such as Rhinegold and The Valkyrie at Oper Köln, the complete cycle The Ring of the Nibelung at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and at Her Majesty's Theater in London; as well as The Nuremberg Mastersingers in Munich and Bayreuth, where they also saw Parsifal. Fauré and Messager often performed the irreverent Souvenirs from Bayreuth, composed by the two in 1878. This whimsical little piece of four-hand piano music parodies themes from The Ring of the Nibelung. Fauré admired Wagner and was familiar with the details of his music, but he was one of the few composers of his generation not to have been influenced by his work.
Average years
In 1883, Fauré married Marie Fremiet, the daughter of the noted sculptor Emmanuel Frémiet. While the marriage was affectionate, Marie resented Fauré's constant absences, their domestic life —horreur du domicile—and his love affairs, while she remained at home. Contemporary accounts state that Fauré was extremely attractive to women. In Duchen's words, "his conquests were legion in the salons of Paris". In 1892, he became romantically involved with the singer Emma Bardac, who was his inspiration for his cycle La bonne chanson, Op. 61. This affair was probably followed by a relationship with the composer Adela Maddison In 1900, Fauré met the pianist Marguerite Hasselmans, daughter of Alphonse Hasselmans. From then on, the two were engaged in a relationship that would last for the rest of Fauré's life; he kept her in an apartment in Paris and she openly behaved like her lover and her housewife.
Although Fauré valued Marie as a friend and confidante, writing to her often—sometimes daily—when he was away from home, she did not share his passionate nature, which found fulfillment elsewhere. Fauré and his wife had two children.. The first, born in 1883, Emmanuel Fauré-Fremiet—Marie insisted on combining his surname with Fauré's—became an internationally renowned biologist.The second son, Philippe, born in 1889, became writer. His works include histories, plays, and biographies of his father and his grandfather.
To support his family financially, Fauré spent some time working at the Madeleine church and teaching piano and harmony lessons. His compositions brought him a negligible amount of money, since his publisher bought them for 60 francs each and Fauré did not obtain royalties for their use. In this period, Fauré wrote a large number of works, including they include pieces and songs for piano; however, he would destroy them after performing them a few times, keeping only a few movements to reuse the motifs. Surviving works from this period include the Requiem, begun in 1887 and revised and expanded. for several years until its final version in 1901. After its first performance, in 1888, the parish priest told the composer: "We do not need these innovations: the Madeleine's repertoire is rich enough."
When he was young, Fauré was very happy; a friend of his mentioned in a letter his "jovial joy, somewhat childish". However, when he was about 30 years old, his failed love affair coupled with his little success as a composer possibly led to depressive attacks, which he himself described as "bad mood". In 1890, a prestigious and highly-paid commission to write an opera to lyrics by Paul Verlaine was cut short by the poet's inability to deliver a libretto while drunk. Fauré became so deeply depressed that his friends became very concerned for his health. In 1891, Fauré traveled to Venice, Italy, at the invitation of American patron Winnaretta Singer, later to be known as Princess Edmond de Polignac, to his palace on the Grand Canal. He regained his spirits and began composing again, writing the first of his five Mélodies de Venise, with lyrics by Verlaine, whose poetry he continued to admire despite the debacle of the opera.
During this time, or shortly after, Fauré's liaison with Emma Bardac began; in Duchen's words, "for the first time, in his late forties, he experienced reciprocation, a passionate relationship that spanned several years." His leading biographers agree that this event inspired an explosion of creativity and a new originality in his music, which is exemplified in the musical cycle La bonne chanson. Fauré wrote the suite Dolly for piano four hands between 1894 and 1897 and dedicated it to Bardac's daughter, Hélène, also known as "Dolly". Some people suspected that Dolly's father was Fauré himself, but his biographers, including Nectoux and Duchen, disagree: the Fauré's relationship with Emma Bardac is believed to have begun just after Dolly was born, although there is inconclusive evidence in any case.
During the 1890s, Fauré's situation improved. When Ernest Guiraud, professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire, died in 1892, Saint-Saëns encouraged him to apply for the vacant position. The most influential at the Conservatoire regarded Fauré as dangerously modern, and his director, Ambroise Thomas, refused to give him the job, declaring: “Fauré? Never! If he is elected, I resign." Despite this, Fauré was elected but for another position held by the late Guiraud: inspector of music conservatories in the French provinces. Although prolonged trips throughout the He disliked the country the job demanded, they also provided him with a steady income and allowed him to stop teaching amateur students.
In 1896, Ambroise Thomas died and Théodore Dubois became director of the Conservatoire. Fauré in turn replaced the latter as chief organist of the Madeleine. Dubois's choice had further repercussions: Jules Massenet, professor of composition at the Conservatoire, had hoped to replace Thomas in his post, but had exceeded everyone's trust by insisting on taking the job for life. Hence his request it was rejected and Dubois was chosen for the post, whereupon Massenet resigned in a rage. Fauré took over the vacancy as professor of composition. As such, he tutored a number of young composers such as Maurice Ravel, Florent Schmitt, Charles Koechlin, Louis Aubert, Jean Roger-Ducasse, George Enescu, Paul Ladmirault, Alfredo Casella, and Nadia Boulanger. From Fauré's perspective, his students needed a foundation. firm in basic skills, so he happily delegated this responsibility to his assistant André Gedalge. Fauré's role came next when he was to help his students use those skills in a way that suited their individual talents. In this regard, Roger-Ducasse wrote: "Assuming whatever the students were working on, he would evoke the rules of form at hand [...] and refer to examples, always from the teachers." Ravel never he forgot Fauré's open-mindedness as a teacher. Receiving Ravel's String Quartet with little of his usual enthusiasm, Fauré asked him for the manuscript a few days later to see it again, commenting: "I could have been wrong." The musicologist Henri Prunières wrote to turn: «What Fauré developed in his students was a harmonious, exquisite sensitivity, the love of pure lines, of unexpected and colorful modulations; but he never recognized them for composing according to his style and that is the reason why they all sought their own paths in many directions, often opposite ».
Fauré's works in the closing years of the 19th century included incidental music for the English premiere of the play Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) by Maurice Maeterlinck, with the same title, and Prométhée, a lyrical tragedy composed for the amphitheater in Béziers. The work, written for outdoor performances, is scored for huge instrumental and vocal casts. Its premiere, in August 1900, was a great success, to such an extent that it was repeated in Béziers the following year and in Paris in 1907. In May 1917, an orchestrated version for full-size casts was produced in opera houses for the Paris Opera. This was followed by more than forty performances in Paris.From 1903 to 1921, Fauré regularly wrote music reviews for the newspaper Le Figaro , a role in which he did not feel comfortable. Fauré's biographer Jean-Michel Nectoux felt that Fauré's natural kindness and open-mindedness predisposed him to focus on the positive aspects of a work.
Director of the Paris Conservatoire
In 1905, a scandal broke out in French music circles over France's highest musical award, the Prix de Rome. It is believed that some reactionary members of the Conservatoire unfairly denied the prize to Maurice Ravel, a student of Fauré. The truth is that Ravel's candidacy for the Rome Prize was rejected up to five times. Dubois was forced to resign. Fauré took his position at the Conservatoire. With the support of the French government, he made a series of changes to the administration and the curriculum. He introduced independent external judges to the body, who would take part in decisions regarding admissions, examinations and competitions, a change that angered some faculty members who had given special treatment to their private students. Many of them resigned, deprived of their considerable windfall income. Faced with changes in the curriculum, Fauré came to be seen as the "equitable revolutionary", being nicknamed "Robespierre" by disgruntled members of the old guard. Likewise, he modernized and expanded the range of music taught at the Conservatory. As Nectoux argues: "Where Auber, Halévy, and especially Meyerbeer had once reigned... it was now possible to sing an aria by Rameau or even something by Wagner—until then a forbidden name within the walls of the Conservatory—". With all this, the repertoire ranged from Renaissance polyphony to the work of Claude Debussy.
Fauré's new position brought him greater economic stability, as well as being more recognized as a composer in Europe. However, the direction of the Conservatory left him with no time for composition in contrast to when he led a life as an organist and piano teacher. As soon as the working year ended, in the last days of July, he left Paris and spent almost two months, until the beginning of October, in a hotel, located near the Swiss lakes, to concentrate on composition. Some works that Dating from this period include his lyrical work Pénélope, as well as some of his most characteristic songs, for example, the cycle La chanson d'Ève, Op. 95, completed 1910, and piano pieces—Nocturnes Nos. 9-11; Barcarolas no. 7-11, written between 1906 and 1914—
In 1909, he was made a member of the Institute of France. His father-in-law and Saint-Saëns, both long-time members of the Institute, campaigned strongly on his behalf and in the end the musician won the vote by a narrow margin, with 18 votes to 16 for the other candidate, Charles-Marie Widor. That same year, a group of composers led by Ravel and Koechlin broke with the Société Nationale de Musique, which, under the presidency of Vincent d'Indy, had embraced reactionary ideals. Because of this, they formed a new group: the Société Musicale Indépendante, of which Fauré accepted the presidency. His only and main concern being the promotion of new music, he remained a member of the old society and continued to maintain a good relationship with d'Indy. In 1911, Fauré supervised the transfer of the Conservatoire to new premises at the rue de Madrid. During this period, Fauré developed hearing problems and gradually lost his sense of hearing. The sound not only became weaker, but it was also distorted, so that the high and low tones in his audible range sounded like other tones. He made efforts to conceal the difficulty from him, but in the end he was forced to relinquish his position as a teacher.
At the turn of the century, Fauré's music began to make its way into Britain and, to a lesser extent, into Germany, Spain, and Russia. He frequently visited England, where he was invited to play at Buckingham Palace in 1908, which opened many doors for him in London and elsewhere. He was present at the premiere of Edward Elgar's First Symphony also that year, and later dined with him. Elgar would later write a letter to his friend Frank Schuster where he would say that "Fauré was a true gentleman—of the best kind of French man—and I admired him extremely." Elgar attempted to put Fauré's Requiem at the Three Choirs Festival, but was unsuccessful until it finally had its English premiere in 1937, almost fifty years after its first performance in France. Composers from other countries Countries also esteemed and admired Fauré. Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky described him as "adorable", Isaac Albéniz and Fauré were friends and correspondents for many years, Richard Strauss asked him for advice, and, in the composer's last years, a young Aaron Copland became his faithful admirer..
The outbreak of World War I surprised Fauré in Germany, where he had come for his annual composition retreat. He managed to leave Germany to settle in Switzerland, from where he was able to move to Paris.He remained in France until the end of the war. When a group of French musicians led by Saint-Saëns attempted to organize a boycott of German music, Fauré and Messager parted company with the idea, although the disagreement did not affect their friendship with Saint-Saëns. Fauré did not recognize nationalism in music. music, seeing in his art "a language that belongs to a country so far above all others that it trails when it comes to expressing the individual sentiments or traits that belong to a particular nation". However, he was aware that his music was more respected than loved in Germany. In January 1905, visiting Frankfurt am Main and Cologne to give concerts of his music, Fauré wrote: "The criticism of my music has been a little cold, but at the same time very polite! There's no question about it, French and German are two different subjects."
Last years and legacy
In 1920, at the age of 75, Fauré withdrew from the Conservatoire due to his increasing deafness and physical weakness. In the same year, he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, a recognition rarely given to a musician. In 1922, a national tribute was publicly paid to him by the President of the Republic, Alexandre Millerand, described in The Musical Times as “a splendid celebration at the Sorbonne, in which the most illustrious French artists participated which made him very happy. It was a moving sight: that of a man present at a concert of his own work and unable to hear a single note. He kept looking thoughtful and, despite everything, he showed gratitude and satisfaction". At this time, an article was published by Excelsior entitled “Mon père” where Fauré himself recalled how he had entered the world of music:
[...] It was surprising to discover my tendencies towards music since no one in my family was in itself a musician. Talent was shown to me when I was barely ten years old, and at such an early stage it was not a concern about any possible effect in my future. Time later perhaps doubts arose about the choice of music as a career. Anyway, my father was undecided—I was the sixth of his children—and he could not afford to take risks.Excelsior. "Mon père", June 12, 1922.
Fauré was in failing health in his last years, partly because of his smoking. Even so, he showed a willingness to help young composers, including some members of Les Six, who were his followers. Regarding this stage of his life, Nectoux describes: "In his old age he achieved a certain serenity, without losing at all his remarkable spiritual vitality, although removed from the sensualism and passion of the works he wrote between 1875 and 1895". Likewise, he maintained that his humor decreased markedly, as if he were adopting a bit of Wagner's melodic style. He knew that he would soon die, so in a letter to his wife written in October 1924, Fauré concluded by saying:
When I return to Paris, I will spend a little time of every day giving you every one of my sketches, drafts and all the leftovers that, after my death, I don't want them to survive, so you can burn everything. While I've been sick, I've realized it's something I really need to do. So help me do it.
In his final months, Fauré strove to complete a string quartet. Twenty years earlier, Ravel had dedicated his String Quartet to him. Ravel and others urged Fauré to compose one of his own. He refused for many years, arguing that it was too difficult. When he finally decided to write it, he did it with fear, he told his wife: «I have started a string quartet, without piano. This is a genre that Beethoven, in particular, made famous, and it makes all non-Beethoven people terrified of him". September 1924, less than two months before his death, working long hours towards the end to complete it. His work String Quartet, Op. 121, premiered posthumously in 1925. He refused an offer to have it performed privately for him in his final days, as his hearing had deteriorated to the point that musical sounds were horribly distorted in his ear.
Fauré died in Paris of pneumonia on November 4, 1924, at the age of 79. He had a state funeral in the Madeleine church and his body was entombed in the Passy cemetery in Paris.
After the musician's death, the Conservatoire reverted to its former conservatism, where his harmonic practice would constitute the maximum limit of modernity, a barrier that students were not to cross. His successor, Henri Rabaud, director of the Conservatoire from 1922 to 1941, declared that "modernism is the enemy". The generation of students born between the wars rejected this outdated premise, favoring Béla Bartók, the Second Viennese School, and the later works of Igor. Stravinsky.
In 1945, in a tribute to commemorate the centenary of his birth, musicologist Leslie Orrey wrote in The Musical Times: «Deeper than Saint-Saëns, more varied than Lalo, more spontaneous than d'Indy, more classical than Debussy, Gabriel Fauré is the quintessential master of French music, the perfect mirror of our musical genius. Perhaps when English musicians get to know his work better, those words of Roger-Ducasse will seem, no longer a compliment, but something that belonged to him ».
Music
Aaron Copland wrote that while Fauré's works can be divided into the usual three periods—"early," "middle," and "late"—there is no radical difference between his earlier and later customs, as is evident with many other composers. Copland found premonitions of Fauré's final style even in his early works, as well as traces of the early Fauré in the work of the older Fauré: "The themes, the harmonies, the form, everything has remained essentially the same, although in each new work they become fresher, more personal, deeper." When Fauré was born, Berlioz and Chopin were still composing and this was one of their early influences. In his later years, Fauré developed compositional techniques that prefigured the atonal music of Arnold Schönberg, and, later, discreetly sketched in jazz techniques. Duchen writes that his early works, such as Cantique de Jean Racine, are in the tradition of 18th-century French Romanticism. XIX; however, the latter are as modern as any of the works of his students.
Among Fauré's influences, particularly on his early works, are Mozart, Chopin and Schumann. The authors of The Record Guide (1955), Edward Sackville-West and Desmond Shawe-Taylor, pointed out that the musician learned from Mozart the restraint and beauty of the surface, from the freedom and long melodic lines by drawing inspiration from Chopin, and "as for Schumann, [he learned] the sudden felicities in which his development sections abound, and those codas in which entire movements light up partly magically". His work was based on the deep understanding of harmonic structures that he obtained at the École Niedermeyer from the latter's successor, Gustave Lefèvre. Lefèvre wrote the book Traité d'harmonie (Paris, 1889), where he establishes a harmonic theory that differs significantly from the classical theory of Jean-Philippe Rameau, where he no longer forbids certain chords as "dissonant". Through the use of slight unresolved dissonances and coloristic effects, he anticipated techniques employed by Impressionist composers.
In contrast to his harmonic and melodic style, which went beyond the standard of his time, Fauré's rhythmic motifs tended to be subtle and repetitive, with little to break the flow of the line, though he used discrete syncopations., similar to those found in the works of Brahms. Copland referred to him as "the Brahms of France". Jerry Dubins postulated in Fanfare Magazine in 2007 that Fauré is the "missing link" between Brahms and Debussy. For Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, Fauré's later compositions do not display the simple charm of his original music: "The exquisite romantic harmony that was always firmly supported by a single key, later gave way to a style severely monochrome, full of enharmonic shifts, which created the impression of several tonal centers being used simultaneously."
Meanwhile, for Teófilo Sanz Hernández, Fauré's musical aesthetic retains a German and Italian style, since his earliest compositions contain influences from Franz Schubert. Likewise, he explains the detail of his concern for his singing compositions that they often contained poetic themes linked to German Romanticism itself, emphasizing "colors, perfumes and sounds". Over time, his musical style became extremely refined, trying to conceive a musical-poetic art. This change was distinguished by his pupil, Maurice Ravel: "This new way is clearly characterized by the importance that from that moment on the harmonic element acquires in the musical language." Each of his melodies revives a Wagnerian style in itself, reflecting in each work a theme of the occult and a gloomy world. Towards a later stage, both the vocal and merely musical works were inspired by poetry as an "interpretive figuralism" but at the same time contradictory, taking "unusual resolutions" as their place. Towards a more mature stage, between 1906 and 1910, it is believed that Fauré adopted a "mystical" musical style, based on an almost magical personal universe, using accidentals so that the music communicated feelings. Sanz argues that Fauré's melodic art is a mystery, considering his melodies as seductive and bold, as well as exciting, managing to "fuse poetry and score into something immaterial".
Vocal music
Fauré is considered one of the masters of French art music known as mélodie. From Copland's perspective, his first compositions were made under the influence of Gounod and, with the exception of some songs like "Après un rêve" or "Au bord de l'eau", showed a small hint of the artist who would appear later in the figure of Fauré. He added that, in his opinion, from the second volume with a compilation of sixty songs one could find the first serious example of the "true Fauré". He gave as an example "Les berceaux", "Les roses d'Ispahan" and especially "Clair de lune", which he said were "beautiful, so perfect that they have reached America", to later focus on other less known as "Le secret", "Nocturne" and "Les présents". Fauré also composed some song cycles. The composer himself described Cinq mélodies «de Venise», Op. 58 as a new kind of suite in terms of the use of recurring musical themes throughout the cycle. For the subsequent cycle La bonne chanson , Op. of the; Emma Bardac sang to him anew every day material he had just composed.
The work Requiem, Op. 48 was not composed in memory of any particular person, but "for the pleasure of doing it". It was first performed in 1888. It has been described as "a lullaby focused on death" due to its predominantly gentle tone. Fauré omitted the Dies irae, although in the part Libera me, from the same Requiem, reference is made to the day of Judgment. In his work, like Verdi, Fauré added Libera me to the standard liturgical text. The musician revised Requiem over the years, and they have been performed ever since. different versions ranging from the first, used for small forces, to the latest revision with full orchestra.
Fauré's operas have not found a place in the regular repertoire. Copland found Penelope a fascinating work and one of the best operas written since Wagner's time. However, he perceived the music to be broadly "distinctively non-theatrical". This particular material uses motifs, and the two lead roles require voices that possess a heroic quality, although these are the only characteristics in which Penelope is Wagnerian. In Fauré's later works, "the tonality is stretched with difficulty, without breaking". On the rare occasions when the piece has been performed, critical opinions have generally praised the quality of the score, but differed on regarding the dramatic effectiveness of the work. When the opera was first presented in London in 1970, in a Royal Academy of Music production, Peter Heyworth wrote, “a score that offers great rewards to a listening ear may, however, do little to thaw the theater... Most music has to be theatrically effective as well." However, after the 2006 production at the Wexford Festival, Ian Fox wrote, "Fauré's Penelope is a true rarity, and, though he anticipated some delightful music, it is a surprise how confident the composer was with his theatrical touch."
Piano Works
Fauré's grand ensembles of piano works consist of thirteen nocturnes, thirteen barcarolles, six impromptus, and four waltz-caprichos. He composed this set of works throughout his musical career, and they show the change in his style from a quiet, unremarkable youth to an enigmatic, even sometimes fierce introspection ending, through a turbulent period in his middle years. other notable piano works, including short works or collections composed or published as a set, were Romances sans paroles, Ballad in fa♯ major, Mazurka B♭ major, Thème et variations in do♯ major and Huit pièces brèves. For piano four hands, Fauré composed the suite Dolly, between 1894 and 1897 and dedicated it to Hélène, daughter of Emma Bardac, and, together with his friend and later student André Messager, an exuberant parody of Wagner in the short suite Bayreuth Souvenirs.
His piano works typically use arpeggiated figures, with the melody sandwiched between the two hands, and include natural finger substitutions for organists. These aspects made them very complex for some pianists, and even a virtuoso such as Liszt found the piano music created by Fauré difficult to interpret. The early piano works are clearly inspired by Frédéric Chopin. An even greater influence was Robert Schumann, for Fauré liked his piano music more than any other. In Copland's opinion, with the sixth nocturne, Fauré strayed from the shadow of any other predecessor. The pianist Alfred Cortot considered: "There are only a few pages in all music comparable to those." Critic Bryce Morrison stated that pianists often chose to play early piano works, such as Impromptu No. 2, rather than perform the the latter expressing "such hidden passion and loneliness, as well as such alternation between anger and resignation", that listeners feel uneasy. In his piano works, Fauré rejected virtuosity in order to incorporate the classical lucidity of compositions. French. Fauré was not at all impressed by the piano display, remarking of keyboard virtuosos that "the more famous they are, the worse they play my works".
Chamber and orchestra music
The orchestra did not interest Fauré to a great extent, since he frequently invited some of his former students, such as Jean Roger-Ducasse or Charles Koechlin, to orchestrate his concerts and plays. His overall orchestral style reflects a definite aesthetic attitude. He was not attracted to the flashy combination of timbres, which he believed were too often a form of self-indulgence and a disguise for lack of ideas. In Nectoux's words: " The idea of timbre was not a determinant in Fauré's musical thought". >—, and the incidental music for Pelléas et Mélisande.
In terms of his chamber music repertoire, his two piano quartets, particularly the first, are among Fauré's best-known works. His other chamber works include two piano quintets, two cello sonatas, two violin sonatas, a piano trio and a string quartet. Copland—writing in 1924, before the string quartet was completed—had described the second quintet as Fauré's masterpiece: "[...] a pure source of spirituality [...] very classical, as far removed from possible of the Romantic temperament." Other critics have taken a less favorable view: "The incessant flow and restrained color scheme of Fauré's late style, as exemplified in this quintet, requires careful handling lest it become tedious." Fauré's last work, the String Quartet, has been described as an intimate meditation on last things and an "extraordinary work by any standard, ethereal and spiritual, with themes that seem constantly to be directed to heaven".
Recordings
Fauré made piano rolls of his own music for various companies between 1905 and 1913. In the 1920s, some of Fauré's most popular songs were recorded, including "Après un rêve" sung by Olga Haley, and "Automne" and "Clair de lune" performed by Ninon Vallin. In 1930, renowned artists such as Georges Thill —“En prière”— and Jacques Thibaud and Alfred Cortot —“Violin Sonata no. 1" and "Berceuse"—, they recorded pieces by Fauré. Some of the musical orchestrations for Pelléas et Mélisande were recorded in 1938.
By the 1940s, there was an increasing number of Fauré's works in music catalogues. A December 1945 survey by John Culshaw listed recordings of piano works performed by Kathleen Long (including Nocturne No. 6, Barcarolle No. 2, the Thème et Variations, Op. 73, and the Ballad Op. 19 in its orchestral version conducted by Boyd Neel), the Requiem conducted by Ernest Bourmauck, and seven songs performed by Maggie Teyte. Fauré's music began to appear more frequently in record company publications around the 1950s. The Record Guide, in 1955, listed the Piano Quartet No. 1, the Piano Quintet No. 2, the String Quartet, both Violin Sonatas, the Cello Sonata No. 2, two new recordings of the Requiem and the complete song cycle for La bonne chanson and La chanson d'Ève.
In the days of LPs and CDs in particular, record companies built up a substantial catalog of Fauré's music, performed by French and foreign musicians. Some of his most important orchestral works have been recorded under the direction of Michel Plasson (1981) and Yan Pascal Tortelier (1996). The musician's main chamber works have been performed by the Ysaÿe Quartet, Domus, Paul Tortelier, Arthur Grumiaux, and Joshua Bell. Piano works have in turn been recorded by Kathryn Stott (1995), and Paul Crossley (1984-85), with major sets of major piano works by Jean-Philippe Collard (1982 -84), Pascal Rogé (1990) and Kun-Woo Paik (2002). Fauré's songs have been recorded for CD, including a complete collection (2005), conducted by accompanist Graham Johnson, with soloists Jean -Paul Fouchécourt, Felicity Lott, John Mark Ainsley and Jennifer Smith, among others. The Requiem and the shorter choral works have also been well performed on CD format. Pénelope was recorded twice, with the cast led by Régine Crespin in 1956, and Jessye Norman in 1981, conducted by Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht and Charles Dutoit, respectively. Prométhée is one of the few works that have not been recorded in their entirety, but most excerpts were recorded under the direction of Roger Norrington (1980).
Modern criticism
In an article about Fauré published in 2001 in Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, the following is detailed:
Fauré's value as a composer has not diminished over time. He developed a complete musical language of his own; with subtle and delicate application of old methods, he evoked the aura of fresh and eternal art; with the irresolute use of mild dissonances and special color effects, he anticipated the procedures of Impressionism; in his piano works, he avoided virtuosity in favor of the classical lucidity of the French masters of the carotin; the melodic line of music His great Réquiem and his He for cello and piano have entered the general repertoire.
Fauré's biographer, Nectoux, writes in the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians that Fauré is widely considered the greatest master of French song and catalogs his songs and his chamber works as Fauré's "most colossal contributions to music". Critic Robert Orledge also wrote: "His genius was synthesis: he reconciled opposite elements such as modality and tonality, anguish and severity, seduction and force within a non-eclectic style.", as in the suite from Pelléas et Mélisande, his symphonic masterpiece. The constantly renewing quality within his seemingly limited range [...] is an extraordinary facet of his genius and reserve, that elliptical style of his singular String Quartet suggests that his intense style of self-discipline it was still developing at the time of his death."
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