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.