Fauré, Gabriel

Fauré, Gabriel (-Urbain)

Gabriel Fauré, portrait by John Singer Sargent; in a private collection.

(credit: Giraudon/Art Resource, New York)

(born May 12, 1845, Pamiers, Ariège, Fr.—died Nov. 4, 1924, Paris) French composer. Born into the minor aristocracy, he enrolled at age nine in a Paris music school, where he studied with Camille Saint-Saëns and remained 11 years. He held the prestigious organist positions at the churches of Saint-Sulpice (1871–74) and the Madeleine (1896–1905). In 1896 he also became professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory, where he taught students such as Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger. He served as its director 1905–20. In 1909 he accepted the presidency of the Société Musicale Indépendante, a group of dissident young composers. His works include the operas Prométhée (1900), Pénélope (1913), and Masques et bergamasques (1919), the orchestral suite Pelléas et Mélisande (1898), two piano quartets (1879, 1886), numerous piano nocturnes and barcaroles, a famous Requiem (1900), and many beautiful songs.

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Fauré, Gabriel 

Born May 12, 1845, in Pamiers, department of Ariège; died Nov. 4, 1924, in Paris. French composer and organist. Member of the Institut de France (1909).

Fauré studied under L. A. Niedermeyer and C. Saint-Saëns. He was a founder and active member of the Société Nationale de Musique (1871). In 1896 he was appointed a professor at the Paris Conservatory, of which he was director from 1905 to 1920; his students included M. Ravel, J. Roger-Ducasse, C. Koechlin, A. Casella, N. Boulanger, and G. Enesco. From 1903 to 1913, Fauré contributed music criticism to Le Figaro.

Fauré’s music was melodically inventive, and his use of certain harmonic devices and lyric tone painting anticipated musical impressionism. Fauré’s major works include chamber music, piano compositions, and a requiem (1888). He also wrote the operas Prométhée (1900) and Pénélope (1913), a symphony (1884), a suite (1873), the orchestral work Pavane (1887), Ballade (1881) and Fantaisie (1919) for piano and orchestra, choruses, romances, and music for the theater.

REFERENCES

Shneerson, G. Frantsuzskaia muzyka XX veka, 2nd ed. Moscow, 1970.
Koechlin, C. Gabriel Fauré. Paris, 1949.
Long, M. Au piano avec G. Fauré. Paris, 1963.

I. A. MEDVEDEVA