Faur

Pierre-Alain Volondat

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Cat No: 8553741

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099474122

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: FAUR

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099474023

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: FAUR

Description
Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) Piano MusicBorn in 1845 in southern France, theyoung Faure was both reticent and apart. A possibly unwanted addition to alarge family, he was the sixth child of Honore and Marie-Antoinette-Hel?¿neFaure and spent his first four years away from home with a foster nurse.Despite provincial beginnings, Fame soonfound his way to Paris and to music school. He studied at Niedermeyer's Ecolede Musique Classique et Religieuse, devoted to the study of music of thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries, training for a career as a choirmaster andorganist. Niedermeyer kept the young composer well away from the influences ofthe new Romantics and it was not until the appointment of Saint-Sa?½ns as histeacher that Faure was introduced to contemporary artists and musicians such asLiszt, Schumann and Wagner.After a spell as organist at SaintSauveur in Rennes, he was back in Paris at Notre-Dame-de-Clignancoutt by 1870.The conflict with Prussia saw Faure conscripted and experiencing the horrors ofwar and an ensuing revolution. Despite French defeat in 1871, Faure became amember of a new patriotic group aiming to promote French music. War was soonfar enough past for Faure and Saint-Sa?½ns to enjoy a trip to Weimar where theyfell under the spell of Wagner, leading to the opera Penelope.Faure married in 1883 and produced twosons. His father died in 1885, his mother two years later, inspiring his bestknown work, the Requiem. Despite this bleak period, Faure wroteincidental music to plays including Maeterlinck's Pelleas et Melisande.In 1896 Faure was at last appointed tothe staff of the Conservatoire and by the beginning of the new century hisfortunes were further in the ascendant. In 1901 he became a professor at theEcole Niedermeyer and music critic of Le Figara in 1903. In 1905 he wasappointed director of the Conservatoire. By now Faure had begun to suffer thatcruelest of afflictions for a musician. Like Beethoven, he was becoming deaf.The war years after 1914 saw Faure in poorfinancial conditions and forced to take up music editing. By 1921, hiscomposing days seemed to have come to a halt. He began to fear that inspirationhad finally left him. June 1924 saw him struggling to complete a Quartet. Hedied in November of that year, having returned to Paris to be with his family.This quiet genius of French music was given a state funeral at the Madeleine,attended by the President of the Republic. His wife died one year later.Despite the influence of the German lateRomantics such as Wagner and Liszt, Faure never aspired to being a composer oflarge scale orchestral music. Exceptions are his opera and perhaps the Requiem,not a Mass in the usual Romantic fashion days of wrath and judgement. Hewas the greatest French composer of chamber music and master of the small formthat includes the many pieces that he wrote for the piano. His works bearsimple titles such as Mazurka or Valse Caprice. A keyboard playerby training and by love, even those pieces known in
Tracklisting
Tracklisting