Gabriel Fauré

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) spent most of his long career as an organist, teacher, and song composer in France — and produced in his final years some of the most radical and emotionally exposed music of the late Romantic era. Born in Pamiers in the south of France, he studied with Saint-Saëns at the Paris Conservatoire and eventually succeeded Dukas as director of the institution in 1905. Throughout his life he suffered from a progressive hearing problem that by 1910 had left him almost completely deaf — yet his last major works (the piano trio, the string quartet, the opera "Pénélope," the song cycles) are among the most subtle and refined music he ever wrote, as though deafness had burned away everything superficial. His Requiem (1887–1900), written over a span of years and never fully finished, is perhaps the gentlest Requiem ever composed — it is less a meditation on death's terror than on death's rest, and its Pie Jesu and In Paradisum have a quality of stillness that makes them among the most consoling pieces of music in existence.\n\nThe piano music — particularly the thirteen Barcarolles, thirteen Nocturnes, and the late Improvisations — is where Fauré's harmonic language shows its full originality. His chord progressions move in ways that seem to float rather than resolve; he uses unresolved 9th and 11th chords as a kind of harmonic suspended animation, never quite arriving at the expected destination. The songs, of which he wrote over a hundred, are the perfect vehicle for his style: intimate, understated, with a melodic line that seems to speak rather than sing, and an accompaniment that responds to every word. "Clair de lune," "Après un rêve," "Les roses d'Ispahan" — these have become so familiar that it is easy to forget how quietly original they were. His final song cycle, "L'horizon chimérique" (1921), four songs on texts by Jean Lahor about the sea and the horizon, is one of the peaks of the entire song literature.\n\nStyle: French mélodie; late Romantic harmony with unresolved chord colors; gentle Requiem; piano Barcarolles and Nocturnes; song cycles of extraordinary intimacy. Requiem, "Clair de lune," "L'horizon chimérique" as essential works.\n\nListening recommendation: The Requiem (specifically the Pie Jesu and In Paradisum) is the gentlest possible entry point. The Nocturnes and Barcarolles for piano reward deep exploration. "L'horizon chimérique" from 1921 is where late Fauré achieves something close to transcendence.