Worth Sharing: Gabriel Faure, Composer



I stumbled upon a composition by Faure quite accidentally and was captured right away.  I listened to the lovely "Pavane" and felt I must know more about this composer of whom I'd never heard.

Gabriel Urbane Faure was born in May of 1845, in Pamiers, Ariege,  France the youngest child, and fifth son of a schoolmaster.  He was sent to live with a foster family for the first four years of his life.  In 1849, when his father began teaching at Foix, the child was sent to live with his parents once more. When he returned home, he would often slip away into the chapel next door to the school where his father taught and taught himself to play the harmonium.   It wasn't until an elderly blind woman who had taken time to sit and listen to the child and give him pointers on his playing expressed her appreciation of his music that his father was even aware the child had been taking refuge in the chapel.


In 1853, having heard of the child's ability, a member of the National Assembly heard Faure play and recommended he be sent to a new music school in Paris.  His tuition would be supported by a scholarship from the bishop of his home diocese.  His father thought this over for a year before agreeing to send his son to the school.

At age 9, Faure was sent to the Ecole Niedermeyer in Paris, where he studied for the next 11 years, learning primarily church music, organ, piano, harmony, and literature. It wasn't until 1861 that Camille Saint Saens, who would be ever present in Faure's life until his death, began to teach piano.  He introduced contemporary music to the students, including Schumann, Listz and Wagner.

In 1865, Faure graduated with awards in every subject and had already written his first compositions.  He worked in various churches and cathedrals as an organist, including Notre Dame de Clignancourt.  In 1871 he formed the Societe Nationale de Musique with his friends Vincent d' Indy, Edouard Lalo, Henri Duparc, and Emmanuel Chabrier.

It was Camille Saint Saens who introduced Faure to Pauline Viardot and Parisian musical high society.  He met and became engaged to Viardot's daughter. When his engagement was broken, Faure took his broken heart and traveled to hear and meet Listz and Wagner.  He took these travels with Saint Saens.  Following his travels, he served in the Imperial Guard and was awarded the Crosse de Guerre.  He became a teacher in Switzerland at another Neidermeyer school and was there for one year.

In 1883, he married Marie Frement.  The couple had 2 sons, but the marriage was not a happy one.  Faure was enamored with his wife, but she did not reciprocate.  He continued to play as a paid organist in various churches and sold his compositions for as little as 50 francs along with the copyright, so that many of his works were lost.   His wife refused to share in any part of the musical salons he attended and did not encourage him in his composing.

Through the 1880's he continued to hold various positions as an organist and in his spare time he composed songs and piano pieces.  He felt nothing he wrote would ever be anything but 'incidental' music, but those pieces that can now be found reveal a complexity of musical line and harmony had begun to develop a highly original tonal quality that in which modal harmony and altered scales were featured.  It was during this time that he began to suffer with bouts of depression.

In the 1890's he began to come into his own as a composer.  Though some felt he was 'too modern' he gained recognition among musicians and in salons.  He tried to share some of his choral pieces within the church but was discouraged by priests who frowned upon anything 'new'.

It was in the 1890's he began to teach.  His students included Maurice Ravel, and Nadia Boulanger.  In 1896 he became professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire.  In 1905, he became director of the Conservatoire amid great controversy.  Again, some thought him far too modern.  This position severely limited his time to compose, just as he was gaining recognition and his work was getting more exposure.

By the time he retired in 1920 he had begun to go deaf.  He had spent nearly 40 years playing the organ, but never composed a single piece for the instrument.  When asked why, he confessed that he'd never liked the organ.  It had merely provided him and his family a regular income.

A brief listing of Faure's best-known works: Pavane, Requiem, and Fantaisie for Piano.   It was his compositions which determined the course of modern music in France.  And as with most who have great genius, he is relatively unknown still!

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