Gabriel Fauré

"Music by Fauré is not very familiar to American audiences. He is best known here by his songs and by the incidental music which he wrote for Maeterlincks "Pelléas et Mélisande"—music, by the way, which is far from showing him at his best. This quintet is in another case. [...] Fauré is reckoned, somewhat mistakenly, among those younger French music-makers who are conveniently summed up as "advanced." Actually, he is in his music infinitely less radical, less adventurous, in his methods of musical expression than are those younger men with whom he has been indiscriminately grouped. Yet in this new quintet there is much that is genuinely, and in the best sense, "modern" In its method of utterance: there are harmonic effects that are delicious in their subtlety and their iridescent hue; there are melodic ideas which captivate the imagination by their freedom and their delicacy of contour. More noteworthy, however, than the surface quality of this music that is unfailingly serene and noble, and that has moments of deep and exquisite beauty. In the second movement, particularly, there are pages where one is reminded that there is such a thing as "inspiration" even—shall one extravagantly say?—in contemporary music."

"Here is another composer of whom France has a right to be proud. Gabriel Fauré (1845), of whom it has been said that he is the French Schumann. His talent is above all manifested in what might be called intimate music, symphonic in spirit, in his songs. It is entirely unlike stage music, and a frame seems to envelop one who experiences from the music the charm of a journey taken in a dream. He chose his special direction from instinct. Listen to his disturbed songs, the first movement, so vehement, of his sonata for piano and violin, the Andante of the first quartet, for piano and strings, which has a most poignant melancholy; the vigorous first movement and the poetic Andante of the tenth [sic] quartet, many parts of his Symphony in D, certain pages of his music for the dramas of "Caligula" of Alexander Dumas, pere, and of the "Merchant of Venice" of Shakespeare; the beautiful Elegy for piano and cello, the gracious and feline Berceuse for piano and violin, and, above all, the admirable Requiem, which might be admired even in connection with that of Johannes Brahms, and you will arrive at the conclusion that Gabriel Fauré merits special mention among the French musicians who have cultivated mainly symphony, and that his note is absolutely personal."

"In 1954 the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire asked me to play the Ballade under André Cluytens to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Faurés death. The Théâtre des Champs-Élysées was packed, I was recalled again and again, and the audience was shouting enthusiastically for the Ballade to be encored. Knowing that I was not well, André Cluytens said to me: "Dont tire yourself out." "What? Forty-seven years ago, in this very society, I was told that the Ballade was obscure, today theyre shouting for an encore and you think Im not going to play it again?" And it went down even better the second time round."

"I launched into Beethovens Thirty-two Variations in C Minor, followed by Liszts Polonaise in E. These were received with great enthusiasm. Since I was satisfied with my performance, I was about to grant the audience some degree of understanding when my host approached, smiling. After showering me with elaborate compliments, he conveyed a message from a young officer present who asked "would I be so kind as to play now one of the piano pieces of Gabriel Fauré". I was aghast, I knew Gabriel Fauré by name, just as I had heard of some of his works, but I had never played a note of them. To my great embarrassment, I had to admit my ignorance. Afterwords I learned that this "herald" of Fauré refused to be presented to me and kept repeating querulously: "I dont understand your enthusiasm for this girl. She plays the piano very well, but shes no musician if she cant play any Fauré." The future was to change his opinion and give me my revenge. Three years later I started playing Faure; and I married that young man."

"In 1903 virtually all of Faurés piano works had been written, with the exception of some Nocturnes and Barcarolles, the Fantaisie for piano and orchestra — but they remained unheard. I plunged into them, the only difficulty, among so many masterpieces, being what to choose. I spent the rest of the summer with my sister, and, keeping to my rendez-vous, I went to Mareval to play the Franck Quintet with a group of amatuers formed by Comte de V ... That fanatical Fauré enthusiast, Joseph de Marliave, decided to be presented to me this time, and even turned the pages for me. There was a young lady there in search of a husband and already she had her eye on him. When the Quintet was finished, he asked her, without any ill intent, what she thought of the music. "Its nice," she replied, in a very knowing manner, and was disqualified at once. Some time later the young officer asked me to share his life. A long engagement followed, interspersed with many happy holidays when we played music together. A very pleasant path was opening in front of us — but for how long, alas? At the side of this enlightened admirer of this music "of fantasy and reason," as he described Faurés work, I went forward with increased confidence in the mission which I had entrusted to myself."

"As for my work, I can say that it reaches its end. [...] I do not want my Quartet to be published and played before it has been tried out in front of my friends, who have always been the first to hear my works: Dukas, Poujaud, Lalo, de Lallemand. I trust their judgment and it is to them that I leave the decision of whether this Quartet should be published or destroyed."