A Fauré Playlist in Preparation for Requiem

As the Choral Society prepares for its performance of Fauré’s Requiem on March 26 and 27, 2022,
we invite you to get to know the composer’s sound world. We can’t wait to see you in March!

 
 

Gabriel Fauré’s most substantial and subsequently best-known work is his Requiem, composed in 1888 for the funeral of a not-terribly-prominent architect, Joseph Le Foufaché. The work has become known as the most understated of the great requiems of the Romantic era, avoiding the most dramatic liturgical text of the “Sequence” altogether.

Fauré himself was quoted as saying “My Requiem was composed for nothing…for fun, if I may be permitted to say so!” His students later tried to “beef-up” the work by changing the original orchestration from the low strings, horns, and harp version we will be performing to an arrangement calling on the full late 19th century battery of violins, winds, and brass. 

However, the subtlety of Fauré's musical style is deceptively both simple and complex, while also being quite accessible and comforting to the ear. This short playlist offers a small window into the lyrical intensity of Fauré’s unique musical voice.

In line with the reduced nature of the repertoire left to us by Fauré, his most lasting contributions to the repertoire were his seventy or so songs for voice and piano. They occupy the same place in the history of the French Romantic chanson as Schubert’s earlier songs had for the German lied.

 

  • Apres un Rêve (“After a dream,” 1877) performed by violinist Joshua Bell

    This early song is perhaps the most famous of his chansons, so much so that it has been frequently recorded by solo instrumentalists. The poetry and the accompaniment are quite ordinary, but the melodie itself is unforgettable, the epitome of the Romantic ideal and its longing for the fulfillment of hopeless desire.

    Après un rêve

    Dans un sommeil que charmait ton image

    Je rêvais le bonheur, ardent mirage,

    Tes yeux étaient plus doux, ta voix pure et sonore,

    Tu rayonnais comme un ciel éclairé par l'aurore ;

    Tu m'appelais et je quittais la terre

    Pour m'enfuir avec toi vers la lumière,

    Les cieux pour nous entr'ouvraient leurs nues,

    Splendeurs inconnues, lueurs divines entrevues.

    Hélas! Hélas! triste réveil des songes

    Je t'appelle, ô nuit, rends-moi tes mensonges,

    Reviens, reviens radieuse,

    Reviens ô nuit mystérieuse!

    After a Dream

    In a slumber which held your image spellbound, I dreamt of happiness, passionate mirage,

    Your eyes were softer, your voice pure and sonorous,

    You shone like a sky lit up by the dawn;

    You called me and I left the earth

    To run away with you towards the light,

    The skies opened their clouds for us,

    Unknown splendors, divine flashes glimpsed,

    Alas! Alas! sad awakening from dreams

    I call you, O night, give me back your lies,

    Return, return radiant,

    Return, O mysterious night!

  • Fauré’s “middle” period beginning with the Requiem is considered be his most inspired, especially after he encountered the poetry of Paul Verlaine. His song cycle La Bonne Chanson (“The good song”) is considered to be one of the masterpieces of the whole era. “La lune blanche…” is the first of two examples which show the subtle finesse of Fauré’s mastery of shifting harmonic colors:

    La lune blanche luit dans le bois

    La lune blanche

    Luit dans les bois;

    De chaque branche

    Part une voix

    Sous la ramée...

    Ô bien-aimée.

    L’étang reflète,

    Profond miroir,

    La silhouette

    Du saule noir

    Où le vent pleure...

    Rêvons, c’est l’heure.

    Un vaste et tendre

    Apaisement

    Semble descendre

    Du firmament

    Que l’astre irise...

    C’est l’heure exquise.

    The white moon shines through the trees

    The white moon

    Shines through the trees;

    From every branch

    There comes a voice

    Beneath the boughs...

    O my beloved.

    The pool reflects,

    Deep mirror,

    The silhouette

    Of the black willow

    Where the wind is weeping...

    Let us dream, it is the hour.

    A vast and tender

    Consolation

    Seems to fall

    From the sky

    The moon illumines...

    It is the exquisite hour.

  • Avant que tu ne t’en ailles (“Before you vanish” from La Bonne Chanson) is the second example from Fauré’s middle period, performed here by Sanford Sylvan in the arrangement for piano and string quartet. This song vacillates between longing for the contentment of the night to last forever and the urgency of the dawn and the anxious desire to see the beloved again.

    Avant que tu ne t’en ailles

    Avant que tu ne t'en ailles,

    Pâle étoile du matin

    - Mille cailles

    Chantent, chantent dans le thym. -

    Tourne devers le poète

    Dont les yeux sont pleins d'amour;

    - L'alouette

    Monte au ciel avec le jour. -

    Tourne ton regard que noie

    L'aurore dans son azur;

    - Quelle joie

    Parmi les champs de blé mûr! -

    Puis fais luire ma pensée

    Là-bas - bien loin, oh, bien loin !

    - La rosée

    Gaîment brille sur le foin. -

    Dans le doux rêve où s'agite

    Ma mie endormie encor...

    - Vite, vite,

    Car voici le soleil d'or.

    Before you vanish

    Before you vanish,

    Pale morning star,

    - A thousand quail

    Are singing, singing in the thyme. -

    Turn to the poet

    Whose eyes are full of love,

    - The lark

    Soars heavenward with the day. -

    Turn your gaze drowned

    In the blue of dawn;

    - What delight

    Among the fields of ripened corn! -

    And make my thoughts gleam

    Yonder, far, ah far away!

    - The dew

    Glints brightly on the hay. -

    Into the sweet dream where still asleep

    My love is stirring...

    - Make haste, make haste,

    For here's the golden sun.

  • Now a later song setting a bleak poem inspired by Verlaine’s own imprisonment. It combines the bare-bones style of Fauré’s accompaniments with a stunning intensity of lyrical expression – an opera in a nutshell!

    Prison

    Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,

    Si bleu, si calme!

    Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,

    Berce sa palme.

    La cloche, dans le ciel qu’on voit,

    Doucement tinte.

    Un oiseau sur l’arbre qu’on voit

    Chante sa plainte.

    Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,

    Simple et tranquille.

    Cette paisible rumeur-là

    Vient de la ville.

    Qu’as-tu fait, ô toi que voilà

    Pleurant sans cesse,

    Dis, qu’as-tu fait, toi que voilà,

    De ta jeunesse?

    Prison

    The sky above the roof –

    So blue, so calm!

    A tree, above the roof,

    Waves its crown.

    The bell, in the sky that you see,

    Gently rings.

    A bird, on the tree that you see,

    Plaintively sings.

    My God, my God, life is there,

    Simple and serene.

    That peaceful murmur there

    Comes from the town.

    O you, what have you done,

    Weeping without end,

    Say, what have you done

    With your young life?

  • Finally, I’d like to share a movement from the first piece of Fauré I was fortunate to encounter as a teenager playing bassoon alongside my teacher in the Utica (NY) Symphony Orchestra: the composer’s incidental music to Maeterlinck’s iconic play Palleas et Melisande. Whereas Debussy composed a full opera to this dramatic text, Fauré’s contribution with muted strings and woodwinds creates a whole dreamlike, melancholy sound-world, one that I couldn’t help but give myself over to, especially during a summer at Tanglewood where I heard the BSO and Ozawa perform it on the lawn. Enjoy Prelude to Pelleas et Melisande performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Seiji Ozawa conducting.