So who’s the French composer everybody loves?
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
Fauré is the French composer the world finds hardest to dislike. While Debussy means custard to some tastes and Ravel an acute form of mustard, their senior colleague wore a bushy white moustache and wrote Clair de Lune. What’s not to like?
Fauré’s reputation has barely changed since his death, 100 years ago this week….
Read on here.
And here.
En francais ici.
Faure did write a delightful song called Clair de lune but the piece with that title that is much more famous is by Debussy. And it’s Clair not Claire.
Claire de Lune was a famous stripper in Milwaukee during the 1920s.
Such an adorable picture of Faure, but I really only admire his “Requiem” and find his miniature piano music rather anodyne much of the time, I’m sorry to say. ‘Dolly Suite’ is cute and listenable.
But oh, that Requiem. With de los Angele, pure heaven.
Do give the chamber music a go. Big-boned, symphonic and deeply sensuous.
Steven Isserlis, Joshua Bell and friends are in the midst of a celebration of Fauré’s chamber music at the Wigmore Hall, five concerts on consecutive nights ending this Tuesday. They’re being live streamed on YouTube and available to enjoy for the following 30 days.
I was there Friday night: it was a joyous occasion, despite Joshua Bell being under the weather: he was a trooper. Lots of fun in the Saint-Saëns’ Piano Trio No 1, while Fauré’s Piano Quartet No 1 was exhilarating.
One reason why Fauré is so loved is that we adore the easy-to-like music (of which there is quite a bit) and largely ignore the more knotty stuff. Case in point, the Fauré Violin Sonata No. 1, always welcome in concert and on classical radio, versus his Violin Sonata No. 2, a much tougher nut to crack, and which I have never once heard in concert. Fauré had a gritty side if you explore enough.
… particularly as he grew older. But this isn’t uncommon — late Liszt is another example.
Denigrating Debussy, Ravel, and Fauré in two sentences is quite an achievement. Chapeau bas
Bizet
What a strange review. Faure’s harmonies, always subtle, became ever more elusive (and allusive) as he aged (and went deaf); his greatest works are (to my taste) his late ones.
Did he write some clunkers? Yes, like the violin concerto, which he wisely left unfinished — perhaps he should have destroyed the MS, as Brahms did with the numerous works he was dissatisfied with.
Our high school band director would play recordings of the Faure “Requiem” in what were called “music appreciation” classes. He claimed it was “a requiem that appeals to the younger generation.”
Because of that I sought out more and more Faure. The two piano quartets are glorious.
‘Claire de lune’ is DEBUSSY’S most famous piece! This Claire does have a letter ‘e’ at the end.
Besides the misleading reference to Clair de lune, the “fabulous violin sonata” that Fauré “would later write” actually predates the violin concerto movement. There is a second violin sonata written much later and much lesser known, but I hardly think this was meant, given the dismissive attitude shown here towards much of Fauré’s oeuvre.
I wouldn’t disregard Saint Saëns when discussing French composers
I’m amazed that he was a womanizer. How can any woman in the world get through that moustache??!
Sally
The French composer it’s impossible to dislike … Michel Legrand! (joke!!)
No joke.
The Fauré second piano quintet sounds like it was written by someone with dementia, or perhaps AI.
Poor you.
With a moustache like that, I always wonder how he ate his soup.
It was soup when it was set in front of him, but broth by the time he enjoyed it.
Custard and mustard? Where did they come from
‘Clair de Lune’ is one of the Chansons de Venise , along with the charming ‘Mandoline.’ No mention here of his immense contribution to French song … Les Berceaux, En Sourdine, Lydia, Apres un Reve. So many masterpieces in that genre.
Round about now seems like the perfect moment for a tonic re-viewing of Richter playing “Alborada del gracioso.” Thanks to YT, it’s a right there to turn to for junctures like this one.
Just one example of Fauré’s genius:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jqj8E_0jbCQ
Like Bach when he was really in love and did not tell his church fathers.
Yes, to Jonathan. When you suggest that Faure composed Clair de lune, you are implying the VERY FAMOUS piano composition, which Debussy composed. Very misleading and most strange that you would have used Clair de lune as an example of one of Faure’s great works.