Saturday, May 21, 2011

French Composer: Facts about Gabriel Faure

Gabriel Faure (1845 - 1924)
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Gabriel Urbain Fauré was born in Pamiers, France, on 12th May 1845 and died on November 4, 1924 because of pneumonia.

Faure is one of the French composers who also contributed in the Music History.  He was a composer, teacher, pianist, and organist in the Romatic era.

He started his musical studies at the age of nine at Ecole Niedermever music school in Paris where his mentor was the famous French composer Camille Saint-Saens.  They became friends and later founded  the Societé Nationale de Musique for  younger generation of  composers in France

He became a professor of composition at  Paris Conservatoire.  Maurice Ravel, another great French  composer became his student and Nadia Boulanger, most influential teacher of musical composition on the 20th century.  He held a position of a director of the Conservatoire in 1905 – 1920.

He was the main organist at the Churches of Saint Sulpice (1871 – 1874) and  Madeleine (1896 – 1905).

His music influences are composers Chopin, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner. 

His musical style exudes melodic sophistication and harmonic complexity.  He was regarded as the master of French songs and the Brahms of France.

See more of his major works:

Song, Après un reve (After a Dream), 1865
First violin sonata, 1876
Ballade, for piano and orchestra, 1881
Pavane, for orchestra, 1887
Song, Claire de lune (Moonlight), 1887
Orchestral Suite, Shylock, 1889
Orchestral Suite, Pelleas and Melisande, 1892
Song-cycle, La Bonne Chanson (The Good Song), 1893
Dolly suite, for piano duet, 1897
Opera, Pelleas et Melisande, 1898
Requiem Mass, 1900
Opera, Penelope, 1913
Song-cycle, Le Jardin clos (The Enclosed Garden), 1915
Orchestral Suite, Masques et Beramasques, 1919
Song-Cycle, L'Horizon chimerique (The Elusive Horizon)

Faure was married to Marie Fremiet in 1883 with whom he had two sons, but later his marriage failed.  There had been other women in his life which said to be the inspiration of his works. 

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