Gabriel Faure

Product Description

This is a comprehensive biography of the French composer Gabriel Faure for the general reader placing his work in the context of his times. Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) is one of the best-loved French composers of his era: works such as his Requiem Pavane" " Dolly Suite & " Cantique de Jean Racine" are perennial favourites. But Faures importance runs far deeper. His music has a unique blend of vigour & restraint sensuality & purity: an individual voice with a degree of integrity that helped him to resist the overwhelming forces
- notably the music of Wagner
- that held his Parisian contemporaries in thrall. His artistic independence served to inspire many of the next generation of French composers seeking to create a new Gallic identity beyond World War I. At the Paris Conservatoire Faures composition teaching was vital to such figures as Maurice Ravel Nadia Boulanger & Charles Koechlin; when he ultimately became the Conservatoires director his reforms were the most radical the institution had yet experienced. Faure has often been thought of as a dreamy somewhat unworldly individual; this book however reveals his ambition & decisiveness. Born in southern France & educated at the Ecole Niedermeyer rather than the powerful Paris Conservatoire he struggled for years to achieve recognition from Frances musical establishment which often deemed him a dangerous outsider; in his personal life he struggled also against bouts of depression an unsatisfactory marriage & later devastating deafness. Faures life & works are explored in the context of the creative melting pot of fin-de-siecle Paris. His relationship with such figures as Saint-Saens Liszt Proust & Verlaine are considered in detail & help to create a portrait of this fascinating milieu. This biography which charts Faures long & difficult rise to fame sets out to illuminate his individuality & reveal his enduring legacy to French music."