- Date: 1919 -1921
- Composer: Gabriel Fauré
- Period: Romantic (1820-1869)
Review
At the end of his life, Fauré's music takes on a curiously detached -- contemplative -- aspect as sonata form (bent readily to his uses) hand-in-glove with textural transparency provides a solid frame for constant quicksilver modulations verging on atonality. Never a confessional composer, the sublimation of abundant passion -- and abundant gaiety -- to an expressive ideal is nonetheless revealing of a deepening restlessness in its elliptical, elusive, exploratory gestures. Indeed, Fauré's transitions, while never less than seamlessly deft, possess a straightforwardness which occasionally approaches the notorious brusquerie of Albéric Magnard. Despite the deafness and physical frailty which dogged his last years, such works as the Second Violin Sonata, the Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra, and the Second Piano Quintet are powerfully worked on large canvases.The latter was begun in the summer of 1919 during his first stay in the village of Annecy-le-Vieux, continued during a winter in the Midi and another summer at Annecy, and completed in Nice in February 1921. Over a rippling accompaniment, Allegro moderato, a confiding first theme on the viola is taken by the strings in turn and answered by the fugal second theme on the strings alone, rounded by a phrase on the piano which will figure prominently in the development. The second theme is given a brief but regular fugal exposition in the course of the development -- the closest Fauré came to academic writing in any of his mature works -- though the rapidity with which it dissolves into supple, delicate polyphony suggests satire, tongue-in-cheek. Closely organized, this seemingly spontaneous cascade of melody pours forth in inexhaustible invention through an extended development arching toward a brilliant coda. Any regret that such an engagingly argued movement should end is swept away by a capriciously coruscating Scherzo of sheer fantasy enigmatically etched in whole-tone sonorities, appearing out of nowhere, shimmering, and disappearing into nothingness. Like the initial movement, the Andante moderato is wrought from three themes -- the viola leading a brief lament in the strings, a consolatory answer from strings and piano, and a chorale on the piano which rises eventually to a softly glowing benediction. The development becomes a tender threnody, the more moving for its restraint. Beginning warily in C minor, the Allegro molto rondo finale lightens through increasingly animated scintillations, teasingly vacillating between major and minor, to end radiantly in C major.
The triumphant, critically acclaimed premiere was given May 21, 1921, at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique, by André Tourret and Victor Gentil, violins; Maurice Vieux, viola; Gérard Hekking, cello; and Robert Lortat, piano. "As the last chord sounded," Fauré's son, Philippe Fauré-Fremiet, recalled, "the audience were on their feet. There were shouts, and hands pointing to the box in which Fauré was sitting (he had heard nothing of the whole occasion). He came to the front row all alone, nodding his head . . . and looking so frail, thin and unsteady in his heavy winter coat. He was very pale." ~ Adrian Corleonis, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
Albums with Excerpt Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Classic CD Awards, 1998 |
