“When I am no more, you will hear said of my work: ‘After all, it is only so much…’ I have done what I could… and so, judge, my God.” The final words of Gabriel Fauré, as quoted in Marguerite Long’s book At the Piano with Gabriel Fauré, were typically modest. After pianist Robert Lortat gave a sparsely-attended recital of his music in 1914, Fauré consoled him with the words, “I’m not in the habit of attracting crowds.”
Today, Fauré is often obscured by the twin shadows of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, perhaps because his music didn’t hide behind descriptive or evocative titles (La Cathédrale engloutie, Pavane pour une infante défunte). His originality is contained within outwardly traditional forms. Critic Émile Vuillermoz wrote that “Fauré is pure music… Under its apparent classicism, it contains the most magnificently revolutionary audacities.” This is particularly true of his profound yet luminous late music, with its daring harmonic progressions, which was written – just like Beethoven – when the composer had gone completely deaf.
Fauré was born on 12th May 1845 in Pamiers, a village in south-western France, the youngest of six children. “I grew up a rather quiet, well-behaved child, in an area of great beauty. But the only thing I remember really clearly is the harmonium in that little chapel. Every time I could get away I ran there – and I regaled myself. I played atrociously... no method at all, quite without technique, but I do remember that I was happy.”
After showing early talent, Swiss composer Louis Niedermeyer accepted him as a pupil in Paris, where he later studied piano with Camille Saint-Saëns, who took on the role of a father figure. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Fauré saw military action to raise the Siege of Paris and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. Fauré was an excellent organist – said to be a fine improviser – and was eventually appointed organist at the Église de la Madeleine. In 1905, he succeeded Théodore Dubois as director of the Paris Conservatoire, where his reforms earned him the nickname “Robespierre”. His pupils included Ravel, Enescu and Nadia Boulanger.
Although he composed some orchestral music and even an opera, Fauré excelled at music on a smaller scale – piano music, songs, chamber music; even his Requiem is quite intimate in nature.
1Requiem, Op.48
“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.” In contrast to the barnstorming, earthquaking Requiems by Berlioz and Verdi, Fauré’s is much gentler, full of the consolatory feeling of faith in eternal rest. It exists in different versions from chamber orchestra to full orchestra. The closing In paradisum is, well, heavenly.
2String Quartet in E minor, Op.121
“I’ve started a quartet for strings, without piano. It’s a medium in which Beethoven was particularly active, which is enough to give all those people who are not Beethoven the jitters!” Like Beethoven, Fauré was completely deaf and in declining health by the time he composed his final work, a string quartet, finishing it just a few months before his death. Fauré’s late style is more abstract than before, the tonality more occluded. The sublime Andante is bathed in autumnal light, the finale like a Scherzo in disguise, reaching a jubilant conclusion.
3Piano Trio in D minor, Op.120
Fauré retired from his position at the Conservatoire in 1920, giving him more time to compose. He began writing his serene Piano Trio at his favourite resort of Annecy-le-Vieux in August 1922, although he was suffering from “perpetual fatigue”. He originally conceived it for clarinet, cello and piano, but switched the top line to violin. There’s a misty, melancholy quality to the first two movements – the Andantino has a wistful, songlike feel – but the finale dances, with surprising sudden twists and turns.
4Pavane in F sharp minor, Op.50
One of Fauré’s best known works, the Pavane nods towards the stately Renaissance dance, pizzicato strings hinting at a lute or guitar accompaniment. It was composed for small orchestra in 1886, shortly before Fauré wrote his Requiem, but it also exists in version with optional chorus (singing about dalliances between nymphs and shepherds) or as a work for solo piano.