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Gabriel Fauré 1845–1924

by Petro J. Petridis

PARIS – The outstanding event in our musical world these last days has been the death of Gabriel Fauré. The passing of the great master evoked the deep regret of musicians of all schools and tendencies. He was, indeed, a composer who enslaved his art to no transient craze, but ever renewed it by smooth evolution. Keeping to tradition and yet alive to the exigency of modern sensibility, he spread his melodic lined amidst harmonies pregnant with poetry and intimate emotion. Powerful orchestral effects tempted him but rarely, and it is in the domain of chamber music that he unveiled the best of his gift. Special mention must be made of his ‘Requiem,’ the discreet mysticism of which is framed on classic lines, thus attaining a degree of serenity often lacking in modern music.

Obituary

by M.-D. Calvocoressi.

Although for the past four years Fauré’s health had been frail enough to constitute a constant source of anxiety to his friends and admirers, the news of his death (which occurred on October 31) came as a painful surprise to all. He was well over seventy-nine years of age (his date of birth is May 13, 1845), and yet it was impossible to think of old age in connection with his music or with himself. The youthful charm and tranquil brightness that always characterised him remained unimpaired, and as a composer he never ceased to display an amazing vitality and alertness. Indeed, some of his latest works, such as the song-sets, ‘Mirages’ and ‘L’Horizon Chimérique,’ and the second Pianoforte Quintet, are among the finest, freshest, and most original things he ever wrote.

No country except his own has realised so far his greatness to the full. By a remarkable coincidence, just before his death, in the New York Musical Quarterly, appeared an article on him, by Mr. Aaron Copland. It is entitled ‘Gabriel Fauré, a Neglected Master,’ and this title expresses the position quite accurately.

One vainly wonders why Fauré’s music, with its perfect atticism and far-reaching originality, should have remained neglected or under-rated outside France. It is precisely the kind of music that would be expected to attract and retain the attention of all cultured and sensitive music-lovers. It is fraught with inner significance, graced with beauty of the most arresting kind, and always delightful in proportion and workmanship. You may revert to it time after time, and ever be finding fresh reasons for admiring and loving it: and you will wonder how it can come to pass that a work such as the lovely second Quintet or the song ‘Diane, Séléné,’ can be heard for the first time in any country without the event being noticed otherwise than by a couple of casual sentences in a few concert-notices (this, alas! is what happened in London). Other works of his – such as the beautiful ‘Requiem’ (Op. 48) – remain practically ignored. Let us hope that very soon the truth of Mr. Copland’s statement, that ‘it is time to give Fauré his rightful place in contemporary music,’ will be universally acknowledged and acted upon.

This place is great from the historian’s point of view as from the music-lover’s. Fauré ranks with Lalo, Chabrier, Saint-Saëns, and Franck as a pioneer of the modern musical renaissance in France. Moreover, his activities continued long after the renaissance was an accomplished fact; and the same youthful vitality which informed his music characterised his teaching and his relations with the musical world around him. This outlook remained fresh and sympathetic to the last. It is no mere coincidence surely, that so great a number of the best French composers of to-day – Louis Aubert, Roger-Ducasse, Koechlin, Ladmirault, Ravel, and Schmidt, among others – should have been his pupils.

France was fully aware of her debt to Fauré, and long is the list of honours – culminating in 1922 in a ‘Hommage National,’ the like of which had never before taken place except for Pasteur – bestowed upon him.

Shortly before his death, Fauré was engaged in completing a String Quartet which is, I understand, ready for publication.

Musical Times, December 1924