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Morceau de Concours

by Gabriel Fauré 1845-1924

Morceau de Concours

by Gabriel Fauré 1845-1924

Born in Pamiers, France in 1845, the focus of Fauré’s early training was church music and the organ. He entered the Niedermeyer School of Religious Music in Paris, where during his training Charles Camille Saint-Saëns became professor of piano, eventually teaching composition as well. Diverting from the syllabus Saint- Saëns also exposed his students to contemporary music, including the works of Schumann, Liszt and Wagner, who influenced so many later composers. When he finished his studies, Fauré had won first prizes in composition, fugue, and counterpoint.
Fauré regularly visited Saint-Saëns’ salon, where he got to know those in the Parisian musical establishment; Lalo, d’Indy, Duparc and Chabrier were among those who became his friends. He also met Charles Gounod, Gustave Flaubert, George Sand, and Tchaikovsky’s friend Anton Rubinstein.
Fauré composed some early large-scale works (two symphonies, a violin concerto in two movements).
While still a student, Fauré published his first composition, a work for piano, Trois romances sans paroles (1863)..

Faure also wrote more than 100 songs, including “Les Roses d’Ispahan” (1884), and song cycles that included La Bonne Chanson (1891–92) and L’Horizon chimérique (1922). He enriched the literature of the piano with 13 nocturnes, 13 barcaroles, and 5 Impromptus being the most well-known. Faure’s Ballade for piano and orchestra (1881; originally arranged for solo piano, 1877–79), two sonatas for violin and piano, and Berceuse for violin and piano (1880) are among other popular works. Élégie for cello and piano (in 1880 he arranged for orchestra, 1896), and two sonatas for cello and piano, as well as chamber pieces.

Faure wrote incidental music for several plays, including Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande (1898), as well as two lyric dramas, Prométhée (1900) and Pénélope (1913). Among his few works written for the orchestra alone is Masques et bergamasques (1919). The Messe de requiem for solo voices, chorus, orchestra, and organ (1887) did not gain immediate popularity, but it has since become one of Faurés most frequently performed works.

Faure ‘s compositional style anticipated Impressionism. His piano works, shied away from virtuosity in favour of the Classical style of the French masters of the piano.

The Morceau de Concours (a test piece or competition piece) is Faure’s reaction to the often flamboyant and virtuosic flute pieces being written and played at the time for flute like the Boehm Grand Polonaise for example. It was written as a sight-reading exercise for the Paris Conservatoire and was in its original form just the melody played once. Upon publication the melody was added a second time. It has a wonderful simplicity that floats in the clouds above the earth with the piano repeating chords like a pendulum of a clock underneath. The temptation to pull it around romantically is sometimes irresistible and takes great musical self-control to perform it as it should be performed with simplicity and beauty.