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.
"Mai" from "2 Songs" (Op. 1 No. 2) was among the six
songs that Fauré, while still enrolled as a pupil at
the École Niedermeyer under the tutelage of
Saint-Saëns, offered to the publisher Choudens as
early as 1864. These were all to Hugo texts: Le
papillon et la fleur, Mai, S’il est un charmant gazon
(which bears the title Rêve d’amour),
Puisqu’ici-bas toute âme, L’aube naît and Puisque
j’ai mis ma lèvre. Only L’aube naît, despite its
name, never saw the light of day. This publishing
venture came to nothing although the great poet (still
in exile) was consulted over his financial expectations
regarding prospective royalties.
In 1910 Fauré confessed that he had never set Hugo
successfully, but this little song is a charmer
nevertheless, as are many of the other Hugo mélodies.
The accompaniment has no important role to play here,
but the melody has a freshness and sincerity. There is
also a rare commodity – an intimacy of expression
where Fauré, small beer in the age of the greater
Meyerbeer, starts his career in the way he means to
continue. The cadence on ‘et l’horizon immense’
is rueful and tender; this is a delightfully turned
phrase, but no match for the intended breadth of the
poet’s imagery. This music shows us clearly where the
young composer’s sympathies lie – with that great
tunesmith Gounod, rather than with Berlioz. (Fauré’s
lack of enthusiasm for the latter composer was to be a
bone of contention between him and his teacher
Saint-Saëns for the rest of his life.)
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 "Mai" from
"2 Songs" (Op. 1 No. 2) for Winds (Flute, Oboe, French
Horn & Bassoon) and Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).