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Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer,
organist, pianist, and teacher. He was the foremost French composer of his
generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers. His
harmonic and melodic language affected how harmony was later taught.
Fauré was born in Pamiers, Ariège, Midi-Pyrénées, to Toussaint-Honoré Fauré and
Marie-Antoinette-Hélène Lalène-Laprade. Fauré was sent to live with a foster-nurse
for four years. At the age of nine he was sent to study at the École Niedermeyer, a
school which prepared church organists and choir directors in Paris, and continued
there for eleven years. He studied with several prominent French musicians,
including Camille Saint-Saëns, who introduced him to the music of several
contemporary composers, including Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.
In 1870, Fauré enlisted in the army and took part in the action to raise the Siege
of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War. During the Paris Commune he stayed at
Rambouillet and in Switzerland, where he taught at the transported École
Niedermeyer. When he returned to Paris in October of 1871, he was appointed
assistant organist at Saint-Sulpice as accompanist to the choir, and became a
regular at Saint-Saëns' salon. Here he met many prominent Parisian musicians and
with those he met there and at the salon of Pauline Garcia-Viardot he formed the
Société Nationale de Musique.
In 1874, Fauré stopped working at Saint-Sulpice and began to fill in at the Église
de la Madeleine for Saint-Saëns during his many absences. When Saint-Saëns retired
in 1877, Fauré became choirmaster. In the same year he became engaged to Marianne
Viardot, daughter of Pauline, but the engagement was later broken off by Marianne.
Following this disappointment he travelled to Weimar, where he met Liszt, and
Cologne in order to see productions of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Fauré admired Wagner, but was one of few composers of his generation not to come
under his influence.
In 1883, Fauré married Marie Fremiet, with whom he had two sons. In order to
support his family Fauré spent most of his time in organising daily services at the
Église de la Madeleine and teaching piano and harmony lessons. He only had time to
compose during the summers. He earned almost no money from his compositions because
his publisher bought them, copyright and all, for 50 francs each. During this
period Gabriel Fauré wrote several large scale works, in addition to many piano
pieces and songs, but he destroyed many of them after a few performances, only
retaining a few movements in order to re-use motives.
During his youth Fauré was very cheerful, but his broken engagement combined with
his perceived lack of musical success led to bouts of depression which he described
as "spleen". In the 1890s, however, his fortunes reversed somewhat. He had a
successful trip to Venice where he met with friends and wrote several works. In
1892, he became the inspector of the music conservatories in the French provinces,
which meant he no longer had to teach amateur students. In 1896, he finally became
chief organist at the Église de la Madeleine, and also succeeded Jules Massenet as
composition instructor at the Conservatoire de Paris. At this post he taught many
important French composers, including Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger.
From 1903 to 1921, Fauré was a critic for Le Figaro. In 1905, he succeeded Théodore
Dubois as director of the Paris Conservatory. He made many changes at the
Conservatoire, leading to the resignation of a number of faculty members. This
position meant that he was better off in terms of income, and he also became much
more widely known as a composer.
Fauré was elected to the Institut de France in 1909, but at the same time he broke
with the old stodgy Société Nationale de Musique, and supported the rogue group
which formed out of those ejected from the Société which was mainly comprised of
his own students. Unfortunately, during this time Fauré's hearing began to weaken.
Sound not only became fainter, it was also distorted, so that pitches on the low
and high ends of his hearing sounded like other pitches.
His responsibilities at the Conservatoire, combined with his hearing loss, meant
that Fauré's output was greatly reduced during this period. During World War I
Fauré remained in France. In 1920, at the age of 75, he retired from the
Conservatoire. In this year he also received the Grand-Croix of the Légion
d'Honneur, an honor rare for a musician. He suffered from poor health, partially
brought on by heavy smoking. Despite this, he remained available to young
composers, including members of Les Six, who were devoted to him.
Gabriel Fauré died in Paris from pneumonia in 1924. He was given a state funeral at
the Église de la Madeleine and is buried in the Cimetière de Passy in Paris.
 Music
Gabriel Fauré is regarded as the master of the French art song, or mélodie. His
works ranged from Classical, when in his early years he emulated the style of Haydn
and Mendelssohn, to Romantic, and finally to an ascetic 20th century aesthetic. His
work was based on a strong understanding of harmonic structures which he received
at the École Niedermeyer from his harmony teacher Gustave Lefèvre, who wrote the
book Traité d'harmonie (Paris, 1889). In this book he sets forth a harmonic theory
which differs significantly from the classical theory of Jean-Philippe Rameau in
that seventh and ninth chords are no longer considered dissonant, and the mediant
can be altered without changing the mode. In addition, Fauré's understanding of the
church modes can be seen in various modal passages in his works, especially in his
melodies.
In contrast with his harmonic and melodic style, which pushed the bounds for his
time, Fauré's rhythmic motives tended to be subtle and repetitive, with little to
break the flow of the line, although he did utilize subtle large scale
syncopations, similar to those found in Brahms works.
Fauré's piano works often use arpeggiated figures with the melody interspersed
between the two hands, and include finger substitutions natural for organists.
These aspects make them daunting for some pianists, but they are nonetheless
central works.
Notable
works
Fauré was a prolific composer, and among the most noteworthy of his works are his
Requiem, the opera Penelope, the orchestral suite Masques et Bergamasques (based on
music for a dramatic entertainment, or divertissement comique), and music for
Pelléas et Mélisande. He also wrote chamber music; his two piano quartets are
particularly well known. Other chamber music includes two piano quintets, two cello
sonatas, two violin sonatas, and a number of piano pieces including the Nocturnes.
He is also known for his songs, such as Après un rêve, Les roses d'Ispahan, En
prière, and several song cycles, including La Bonne Chanson with settings of poems
by Verlaine, and L'horizon chimérique.
The Requiem, Op. 48, was not composed to the memory of a specific person but, in
Fauré's words, "for the pleasure of it". It was first performed in 1888. Fauré is
thought not to have had strong religious beliefs. It has been described as "a
lullaby of death". In setting his requiem, he left out the Dies irae, though the
reference to the day of judgment appears in the Libera me, which he added to the
normal requiem mass. Several slightly different versions of the Requiem exist, and
these have given rise to a number of different recordings. Personal grief may have
influenced the composition as it was started after the death of his father, and
before it was completed, his mother died as well. The Requiem can thus be seen as
an expression of Fauré's personal tragedy written after the death of his parents.
The Requiem is also acknowledged as a source of inspiration for the similar setting
by Maurice Duruflé.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Gabriel
Faure - Manifesting Generator - Biography
