Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845 – 1924) was a French
composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of
the foremost French composers of his generation, and
his musical style influenced many 20th-century
composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane,
Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs
"Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his
best-known and most accessible compositions are
generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his
most highly regarded works in...(+)
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (1845 – 1924) was a French
composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of
the foremost French composers of his generation, and
his musical style influenced many 20th-century
composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane,
Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs
"Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his
best-known and most accessible compositions are
generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his
most highly regarded works in his later years, in a
more harmonically and melodically complex style.
Fauré was born into a cultured but not especially
musical family. His talent became clear when he was a
young boy. At the age of nine, he was sent to the
École Niedermeyer music college in Paris, where he was
trained to be a church organist and choirmaster. Among
his teachers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who became a
lifelong friend. After graduating from the college in
1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and
teacher, leaving him little time for composition. When
he became successful in his middle age, holding the
important posts of organist of the Église de la
Madeleine and director of the Paris Conservatoire, he
still lacked time for composing; he retreated to the
countryside in the summer holidays to concentrate on
composition. By his last years, he was recognised in
France as the leading French composer of his day. An
unprecedented national musical tribute was held for him
in Paris in 1922, headed by the president of the French
Republic. Outside France, Fauré's music took decades
to become widely accepted, except in Britain, where he
had many admirers during his lifetime.
Fauré's music has been described as linking the end of
Romanticism with the modernism of the second quarter of
the 20th century. When he was born, Chopin was still
composing, and by the time of Fauré's death, 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, notes that his
harmonic and melodic innovations influenced the
teaching of harmony for later generations. During the
last twenty years of his life, he suffered from
increasing deafness. In contrast with the charm of his
earlier music, his works from this period are sometimes
elusive and withdrawn in character, and at other times
turbulent and impassioned.
Fauré begins his song-writing career with a pianistic
carte de visite. A ritornello is launched with élan
(one ascending C major scale, then another – a
musical commonplace adapted for lepidopteran
acrobatics) followed by sequences that spiral downwards
in waltz rhythm. The song is usually chattered in a
fast tempo (and in a bright D major transposition) that
emphasizes its glittering superficiality. In the lower,
original, key there is room for a touch of sadness and
vulnerability; we can see a lovesick teenager rooted to
the spot and not yet able to quench the thirsts of
adolescence. The cover of the autograph (where the
composer takes more pains in the penmanship of the
title, La fleur et le papillon, than in the setting’s
prosody) contains an amusing sketch of a flower with
tiny arms looking up to a hovering butterfly wearing a
crown. This was drawn by Saint-Saëns, Fauré’s
teacher at the École Niedermeyer, who was clearly
bemused by his pupil’s achievement. The poem, No
XXVII in Hugo’s Chants du crépuscule has no title in
the first edition. Perhaps the composer knew the text
from Henri Reber’s modest setting of 1847.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Faur%C3%A9)
Although originally composed for Voice (Soprano) and
Piano, I created this Interpretation of the "Le
Papillon et la Fleur" from "2 Songs" (Op. 1 No. 1) for
Winds (Piccolo, Flute, Oboe, French Horn & Bassoon) and
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
PARTITION