# Fauré - Recommended Works & Recordings



## peteAllen (Jul 17, 2011)

Recently﻿ I realised that although I have loved and owned many reco﻿rdings of his Requiem for years, there is almost nothing else of his in my collection. Big gap worth filling?

﻿﻿﻿Could you recommend any of h﻿is other pieces? ﻿﻿


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Start with these:


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

I'll add:


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I have a different version, but the nocturnes would be my next recommendation as well.


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## peteAllen (Jul 17, 2011)

Thanks for the recommendations. Will check them out


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

The quartets have already been mentioned, so I'll add the trio, and one more ...


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Faure songs- Souzay or Bernac (Kathleen Battle released a decent CD of these songs, the French equivalent of the lieder of Schubert and Schumann)

The Piano Trio is an incredible work, one of the truly great trios, in a more harmonically and melodically 'advanced' idiom than the piano quartets, which are also delicious. The Piano Quintets mark the mid point in his stylistic evolution. I really enjoy the pieces breves op.84, just for something different, but amongst his impromptus, barcarolles and nocturnes we see a consistently high standard, even if perhaps a consistency of mood as well.

The early ballade is a highly enjoyable work, in its solo or concertante skin. Pelleas and Melisande is a sweet if inoffensive work compared with the Debussy. 2 absolute masterpieces are the choral Cantique de Jean Racine and the song cycle La Bonne Chanson, musts for Faure lovers. The 2 sonatas for cello and piano and the 2 sonatas for violin and piano are absolute masterpieces. Especially the 2nd of the violin works, it is a glorious work, but I also love the scherzo of the 1st work in particular, so rhythmically tricky for the performers. I have a version by Grumiaux which is treasurable.

Another very fine work, rarely heard, is the Theme and Variations in C# minor, well worth a listen (or a read at the piano; although this like his valse-caprices is amongst his more technically challenging piano works)


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## Anankasmo (Jun 23, 2017)

Harmony-wise these beautiful nocturnes surpass Chopin's works.


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## Guest (Aug 6, 2018)

The Piano Quartets and Quintets are indeed beautiful works. The Domus recordings cited are good, but I think these are better:










But really, the best of Faure is the solo Piano music. I would suggest getting a complete set, which can be had for a reasonable price these days. (Why left someone else pick and choose what music you will hear).

Collard is often cited as being excellent, although the EMI France audio from the '70s is not state of the art.










Another alternative is Hubeau










For first rate audio, there is Stott










I also love the Cello Sonatas










Orchestral music is not really Faure's prime, in my opinion, but Ansermet made a recording of the Prelude to Penelope which is utterly sublime. It may be difficult to find convenient release. This one would duplicate the Requiem.

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61-2a2TVtcL.jpg

I would say it is the single best recording of Faure orchestral music I have heard.


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## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

IMO his string quartet is a beautiful work. Here it's paired with Ravel's string quartet.

https://www.amazon.com/String-Quart...33578335&sr=1-4&keywords=faure+string+quartet


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

A few weeks ago I had an odd Fauré experience. It was very hot at 3 a.m., too hot for me to sleep. So I got up, made a drink and stumbled across an old recording of piano preludes that someone had sent me, played by Eric Heidsieck. Well in the early hours of the morning, this music sounded wonderfully cool. Fauré preludes just may be as interesting as the late nocturnes that everyone knows. 

In the past I was a great lover of the late music, especially the second violin sonata and the quartet. Now it’s a bit peripheral to my interests. There’s a recording of the quartet that I really loved, by Ébène Quartet. But there are probably lots of new good ones that I haven’t heard.


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## peteAllen (Jul 17, 2011)

Thank you for your recommendations. I found some of these at my library (Barbican Centre - fantastic for classical)


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Gabriel FAURÉ (1845–1924) ~ Piano Works

Most of Fauré’s early piano works have attractive themes and are easy on the ear, but most quit resonating with me the moment the last note is sounded. Things get more interesting in the mid 1890s with Nocturne No. 6 and Barcarolle No. 5, which leave the listener with a good deal more to think about when all is said and done and played. Toward the end of the decade, beginning with Nocturne No. 7, that “elusive” thing associated with late Fauré makes its nebulous debut, and the major works that follow tend (with a fair number of digressions and diversions and just plain exceptions) to get more sophisticated and elusive with the years, all leading up to the late, great Nocturne No. 13 in B minor, one of my favorite piano pieces by anyone.

After sifting through Fauré piano works over the years, I’m left with the following favorites …

1894 : Nocturne No. 6 in D-flat major, Op. 63 ~ This most popular of Fauré piano works is as rich and rife with ideas (including bird-song) as it could be in its wanderingly evolving sort of way, but it always manages to find its way back home for the holidays. Many listeners favor the unexpected one-off recording by Wilhelm Kempff from 1945, but I prefer the stiffer spine and greater austerity of Thyssens-Valentin.

1894 : Barcarolle No. 5 in F-sharp minor, Op. 66 ~ This work features an uncommonly rhythmic sense of melody … or melodic sense of rhythm? … in that it’s difficult to unravel and consider rhythm and melody apart from each other.

1895 : Thème et variations in C-sharp minor, Op. 73 ~ This anomaly in Fauré’s output is the most “Germanic” of his works and is often (tenuously) likened to Schumann’s Études symphoniques.

1898 : Nocturne No. 7 in C-sharp minor, Op. 74 ~ This ambiguous, doubt-filled work is anything but the confident wanderer that Nocturne No. 6 is, though it does resolve itself quite beautifully at the very end. It strikes me as the first work on the “elusive” path to the great Nocturne No. 13.

1909 : Barcarolle No. 9 in A minor, Op. 101 ~ A gondola ride on the River Styx.

1909 : Impromptu No. 5 in F-sharp minor, Op. 102 ~ I hear this as an uncharacteristically humorous work, a tongue-in-cheek homage to the whole-tone scale; that well-known Fauré expert/nut Bryce Morrison, on the other hand, hears it as “a defiant break with convention” that “seethes with unrest”—not that our views are necessarily mutually exclusive.

1910 : Neuf Préludes, Op. 103 ~ Fauré had considered composing a complete set of préludes (one in each key) à la Chopin and Debussy, but he settled on these nine. Only #3, #6 (a dry, dutiful little canon of classical intent), and #9 are true favorites of mine, really, but it seems churlish somehow to break up the set.

1913 : Barcarolle No. 11 in G minor, Op. 105 ~ This wonderfully conflicted work seems to emerge out of an internal struggle between trepidation/hesitation and impetus/momentum.

1921 : Nocturne No. 13 in B minor, Op. 119 ~ Late Fauré in a sublime nutshell … an elusive little world unto itself.

I spot check new (to me) recordings from time to time, but I always return to the late-50s or so recordings by Germaine Thyssens-Valentin on the Ducretet-Thomson label, reissued on CD by Testament. The recorded sound is a bit dry, cardboardy, and constricted (exacerbated somewhat by the over-filtered/-processed Testament transfers), but the playing epitomizes Fauré playing to my ears, especially in the later works.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Beautiful list Dirge, but you must also pay a nod to the barcarolles in G and Ab, and the Impromptus 2 and 3, the works you cite are generally incredibly refined and are for those for who appreciate the Faure idiom already. These with the ballade are accessible and yet aristocratically gorgeous pieces.


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## sbmonty (Jan 11, 2014)

A recent purchase and highly enjoyable.


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## pjang23 (Oct 8, 2009)

Fauré also wrote perhaps the finest body of French art songs ever written -- arguably his greatest achievement, though given the overall obscurity of the art song genre they often get overlooked.

I highly recommend the performances by Elly Ameling, Gerard Souzay, and Dalton Baldwin.









Some sample highlights:

Après un rêve, op.7/1
En sourdine, op.58/2
Clair de lune, op.46/2
Les roses d'Ispahan, op.39/4
Les berceaux, op.23/1
Pleurs d'or, op.72

La Chanson d'Ève, op.95
La Bonne Chanson, op.61


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Eusebius12 said:


> Beautiful list Dirge, but you must also pay a nod to the barcarolles in G and Ab, and the Impromptus 2 and 3, the works you cite are generally incredibly refined and are for those for who appreciate the Faure idiom already. These with the ballade are accessible and yet aristocratically gorgeous pieces.


I considered citing some earlier (pre-Nocturne No. 6/Barcarolle No. 5) works for the sake of well-roundedness and balance, but I figured that it would be better to let someone with a greater appreciation of those works take care of that … _enter Eusebius12_.

Of the works you mention, the rather idyllic Impromptu No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 34 (1883) comes closest to being a favorite of mine, if only for the delightfully disturbed/hesitant/off-kilter second section (which tries to reassert itself near work's end but is beaten back by the annoyingly irrepressible happy music).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's a Nocturne being played by Ignaz Tiegerman which I remember liking


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Dirge said:


> I considered citing some earlier (pre-Nocturne No. 6/Barcarolle No. 5) works for the sake of well-roundedness and balance, but I figured that it would be better to let someone with a greater appreciation of those works take care of that … _enter Eusebius12_.
> 
> Of the works you mention, the rather idyllic Impromptu No. 3 in A-flat major, Op. 34 (1883) comes closest to being a favorite of mine, if only for the delightfully disturbed/hesitant/off-kilter second section (which tries to reassert itself near work's end but is beaten back by the annoyingly irrepressible happy music).


I too love the impromptu in Ab. Really the 'happy' music is more rippling than exuberant. At least that is the idea that I try to bring across. Also the Pieces Breves and the early Romances sans Paroles are easier and somewhat lighter fare, certainly the latter are very light and easy introductions to the Faure idiom.


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## Eusebius12 (Mar 22, 2010)

Mandryka said:


> Here's a Nocturne being played by Ignaz Tiegerman which I remember liking


Probably the best of the early nocturnes. As Dirge points out, the 13th Nocturne is Faure's piano masterpiece.


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