Requiem, Pelléas et Mélisande, Pavane

Gabriel Fauré

Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Charles Dutoit, cond.)

album cover

A Different Sort of Impressionist

Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) was an innovator who had nothing against the past. His music goes its own moody way, gently and sneakily and with great sensitivity to what's come before. Operating with much less fanfare than his more famous contemporary countryman Claude Debussy, Fauré created music that is unfailingly demure; pleasantness covers every external surface, almost obscuring the emotions underneath. His pieces rarely venture to extremes, and you have to pay close attention to their inner workings—like the serpentine melody lines of the Pavane, which glance momentarily at different keys, then turn back—before the core of his art is revealed.

Fauré's central medium was song. His notion of art song conforms to classic ABA structure, but with simple, direct melody lines. Even his Requiem, among the most "songful" such works of all time, leans in that direction: It was intended to be a concert piece, not part of a church service, and has little of the counterpoint heard in the sacred music of Germanic composers. Check out the Pius Jesu movement, for example, where the lines spun so lovingly by Kiri Te Kanawa bear the faint hint of a parlor song, or a cabaret piece. Those looking for sobering piety may be disappointed; the rest of us can enjoy a stirring rhapsody, complete with those garish harp arpeggios that French composers couldn't seem to resist.

This version of the Requiem, with the Swiss-born Charles Dutoit conducting the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, honors Fauré's composerly demeanor while magnifying the reassuring beauty of his melodies. The Pavane, which is often programmed with Fauré's Requiem, is rendered methodically but not with a heavy hand. Also here is the incidental music Fauré wrote for the play Pelléas et Mélisande; it's the story Debussy adapted for his opera of the same name (see p. 213), and as such provides an interesting comparison of temperament. Debussy, the pioneering impressionist, insists on the primacy of music among the arts. Fauré's task is to simply provide atmosphere for the theatrical proceedings; it's a humbler job, and Fauré does it as though he's happy to exist somewhere in the mix, an equal among writers, poets, and painters.

Genre: Classical
Released: 1990, London
Key Tracks: Requiem: Sanctus, Libera Me. Pélleas: Andantino. Pavane.
Catalog Choice: Piano Quartets, Yo-Yo Ma et al.
Next Stop: Claude Debussy: La mer
After That: Maurice Ravel: Complete Works for Piano
Book Pages: 272–273