Gabriel Urbain Fauré

For more information on Gabriel-Urbain Fauré, visit Britannica.com.

(b Pamiers, 12 May 1845; d Paris, 4 Nov 1924). French composer and teacher. He trained at the Ecole Niedermeyer (1854-65) as organist and choirmaster, coming under the influence of Saint-Saëns and his circle while working as a church musician (at Rennes, 1866-70; St Sulpice, 1871-3; the Madeleine, from 1874) and giving lessons. Though he met Liszt and was fascinated by Wagner, he sought a distinctive style in his piano pieces and numerous songs, which had to be composed during summer holidays. Recognition came slowly owing to the modernity of his music. In 1892 he became national inspector of the provincial conservatories, and in 1896 chief organist at the Madeleine and composition teacher at the Conservatoire, where his pupils included Ravel, Koechlin, Roger-Ducasse, Enescu and Nadia Boulanger; from 1905 to 1920 he was the Conservatoire's resolute and influential director, becoming celebrated for the vocal and chamber master-pieces he produced until his death.

Fauré's stylistic development can he traced from the sprightly or melancholy song settings of his youth to the bold, forceful late instrumental works, traits including a delicate combination of expanded tonality and modality, rapid modulations to remote keys and continuously unfolding melody. Widely regarded as the greatest master of French song, he produced six important cycles (notably the novel La bonne chanson op.61) and three collections each of 20 pieces (1879, 1897, 1908). In chamber music he enriched all the genres he attempted, while his works for piano (chiefly nocturnes, barcarolles and impromptus) embody the full scope of his stylistic evolution. Among his few large-scale works, the popular and delicately written Requiem op.48 and the ‘song opera’ Pénélope (1913) are noteworthy.

works:
Dramatic music

• Prométhée, lyric tragedy (1900)
• Pénélope, lyric drama (1913)
• Masques et Bergamasques, lyrical comedy (1919)
• incidental music to 6 plays, incl. Pelléas et Mélisande (1898)

Vocal music

• Messe basse (1881)
• Requiem (1877)
• c 15 other sacred pieces, incl. Cantique de Jean Racine (1865)
• secular choruses, duets
• 6 song cycles, including La bonne chanson (1894)
• over 50 songs

Orchestral and chamber music

• pieces for solo inst(s) and orch
• orch suites from stageworks
• 2 pf qnts (op.89, d, 1895
• op.115, c, 1921)
• str qt, e (1924)
• (Pf) Trio, d (1923)
• 2 pf qts (op.15, c, 1879
• op.45, g, 1886)
• 2 vn sonatas
• 2 vc sonatas
• pieces for solo inst and pf
• harp pieces

Piano music

• 13 nocturnes
• 13 barcarolles
• 9 preludes
• 5 impromptus
• 4 valse-caprices
• Dolly, pf duet (1897)

---

The French composer Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845-1924) is best known for his songs and his typically French exquisiteness of taste.

Gabriel Fauré was born on May 12, 1845, in the provincial town of Pamiers, where his father was superintendent of schools. When Gabriel was 9, he was sent to Paris to attend the École Niedermeyer, a school for the education of church musicians, where he had won a scholarship. Fauré received a thorough grounding in organ playing and theory and became acquainted with Gregorian chant, whose modal melodies influenced his later compositions. Camille Saint-Saëns, a teacher at the school, exerted a strong influence on the young provincial.

When Fauré graduated in 1865, he accepted a position as organist in Rennes, but within a year he returned to Paris. He served as assistant organist at St-Sulpice and later at the Madeleine, Paris's most fashionable church, eventually becoming principal organist. He was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory from 1896 until 1905 and director until 1920, when his growing deafness forced him to resign.

Fauré was not a prolific composer, and with few exceptions he avoided the larger dramatic forms of opera and symphony. His compositions fall into three periods stylistically. Most of his songs were written during the first period, which ended in 1886. Their beautiful melodies and flowing accompaniments make the songs small masterpieces of the genre. Many of the piano pieces belong to this period. These nocturnes, barcarolles, and impromptus do not show off the performer's technique, but their subtle melodies, arpeggio accompaniments, and surprising harmonic progressions give them a special charm. Other early works are the Sonata No. 1 for violin and piano (1876) and the two Piano Quartets (1879 and 1886), which have an immediate charm and soaring lyricism.

Important works of Fauré's second period, which lasted until 1908, are the song cycle La Bonne chanson (1892), settings of Paul Verlaine's poems, and the Requiem (1887). In contrast with the dramatic Requiems of most of his predecessors and contemporaries, Fauré's is calm and resigned, a profound and moving meditation.

Works of the third period include two song cycles, La Chanson d'Eve (1910) and Le Jardin clos (1917); an austere opera, Penelope (1913); Sonata No. 2 for violin and piano (1917); Piano Quintet No. 2 (1921); and a Piano Trio (1924). These compositions, the works of a man in his 70s, are remarkable for their original harmonic progressions, serenity, and clarity. Fauré died in Paris on Nov. 4, 1924.

Further Reading

Norman Suckling, Fauré (1946; rev. ed. 1951), is the best study of the composer's life and works. Martin Cooper, French Music from the Death of Berlioz to the Death of Fauré (1951), discusses distinguishing stylistic characteristics of major French composers of that period. See also Rey M. Longyear, Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music (1969).

Additional Sources

Fauré, Gabriel, Gabriel Fauré: a life in letters, London: Batsford, 1989.

Gabriel Faurâe, 1845-1924, New York: AMS Press, 1976.

Orledge, Robert, Gabriel Fauré, London: Eulenburg Books, 1979.

Suckling, Norman, Fauré, Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1979.

Vuillermoz, Émile, Gabriel Fauré, New York: Da Capo Press, 1983.

Fauré, Gabriel (b Pamiers, 12 May 1845, d Paris, 4 Nov. 1924). French composer. He wrote no ballet scores but his concert music has often been used for dance, most notably Pelléas et Mélisande (chor. J. J. Etcheverry, Brussels, 1953, and Balanchine in the Emeralds section of Jewels, New York, 1967. The latter also incorporates Fauré's Shylock Overture). Other choreographed scores include Pavane (chor. MacMillan, London, 1973), Requiem (chor. MacMillan, Stuttgart, 1976, and also G. Casado and J. Russillo, 1976), and the various piano pieces and songs used in A. Howard's La Fête étrange (London, 1940).

Fauré, Gabriel (1845-1924). French composer, performer, and teacher. From 1907 to 1920 he was head of the Paris Conservatoire, where he initiated numerous innovations. Although he composed music for almost all genres, Fauré represents for many the quintessence of French song-writing. Most of his songs, or mélodies, were set to poems by Hugo, Gautier, Leconte de Lisle, Baudelaire, Verlaine, and the lesser-known Armand Silvestre. Verlaine arguably inspired his best songs. Although not rigid in its adherence to texts (he would omit or split stanzas), his musical response to the subtleties of the poetry results in an extraordinarily sensitive moulding of poetry to music.

[Kerry Murphy]

• Period: Post-Romantic (1870-1909)
• Country: France
• Born: May 12, 1845 in Pamiers, Ariège, France
• Died: November 04, 1924 in Paris, France
• Genres: Chamber Music, Choral Music, Concerto, Keyboard Music, Miscellaneous Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Vocal Music

Biography

When Gabriel Fauré was a boy, Berlioz had just written La damnation de Faust and Henry David Thoreau was writing Walden. By the time of his death, Stravinsky had written The Rite of Spring and World War I had ended in the devastation of Europe. In this dramatic period in history, Fauré strove to bring together the best of traditional and progressive music and, in the process, created some of the most exquisite works in the French repertoire. He was one of the most advanced figures in French musical circles and influenced a generation of composers world-wide.

Fauré was the youngest child of a school headmaster and spent many hours playing the harmonium in the chapel next to his father's school. Fauré's father enrolled the 9-year-old as a boarder at the École Niedermeyer in Paris, where he remained for 11 years, learning church music, organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint, and literature. In 1861, Saint-Saëns joined the school and introduced Fauré and other students to the works of more contemporary composers such as Schumann, Liszt, and Wagner. Fauré's earliest songs and piano pieces date from this period, just before his graduation in 1865, which he achieved with awards in almost every subject. For the next several years, he took on various organist positions, served for a time in the Imperial Guard, and taught. In 1871 he and his friends -- d'Indy, Lalo, Duparc, and Chabrier -- formed the Société Nationale de Musique, and soon after, Saint-Saëns introduced him to the salon of Pauline Viardot and Parisian musical high society. Fauré wrote his first important chamber works (the Violin Sonata No. 1 and Piano Quartet No. 1), then set out on a series of musical expeditions to meet Liszt and Wagner. Throughout the 1880s, he held various positions and continued to write songs and piano pieces, but felt unsure enough of his compositional talents to attempt anything much larger than incidental music. Fauré's pieces began to show a complexity of musical line and harmony which were to become the hallmarks of his music. He began to develop a highly original approach to tonality, in which modal harmony and altered scales figured largely. The next decade, however, is when Fauré came into his own. He was named composition professor at the Paris Conservatoire in 1896. His music, although considered too advanced by most, gained recognition amongst his musical friends. This was his first truly productive phase, seeing the completion of his Requiem, the Cinq Mélodies, and the Dolly Suite, among other works. Using an economy of expression and boldness of harmony, he built the musical bridge over which his students -- such as Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger -- would cross on their journey into the twentieth century. In 1905, he was named director of the conservatory and made several significant reforms. Ironically, this position gave his works more exposure, but it reduced his time for composition and came when he was increasingly bothered by hearing problems. Fauré's works of this period show the last, most sophisticated stages of his writing, streamlined and elegant in form. During World War I, Fauré essentially remained in Paris and had another extremely productive phase, producing, among other things, Le Jardin clos and the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra, Op. 111, which show a force and violence that make them among the most powerful pieces in French music. In 1920 he retired from the school, and the following year gave up his music critic position with Le Figaro, which he had held since 1903. Between then and his death in 1924, he would produce his great, last works: several chamber works and the song cycle L'horizon chimérique. ~ AMG, All Music Guide