Composed 1898; Duration: 18 minutes
First BPO Performance: April 21 & 23, 1968 (Aaron Copland, conductor)
Last BPO Performance: January 12-13, 2018 (JoAnn Falletta, conductor)
Gabriel Fauré cut his teeth as a student of Camille Saint-Saëns, held numerous positions as an organist, and composed a great deal, especially contributing to the French art song literature. In 1896, he was the obvious candidate to fill the Paris Conservatoire’s vacant composition professorship, even if his bent toward modern music irked the institution’s more conservative factions. Following a scandal surrounding his student Maurice Ravel failing to win the Prix de Rome, Fauré was appointed head of the Conservatoire, serving from 1905 until his retirement in 1920.
In 1898, Fauré created incidental music for an English production of Symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck’s Pelléas and Mélisande. Other composers, notably Claude Debussy, would produce scores inspired by the work, and Fauré’s score aptly demonstrates his position as a bridge between Germanic Romanticism and French Impressionism.