Composed 1922-3; 19 minutes

For most of his career, Fauré composed only in the summers. It was not until World War I—and then after retiring from the Paris Conservatoire in 1920 at age 75—that he could fully devote himself to the chamber works and songs that crown his late output. Among these are a piano trio and a string quartet—his last compositions, but the first he completed in each form. “I’ve started a Trio for clarinet (or violin), cello and piano,” he wrote to his wife in September 1922 from Annecy-le-Vieux. “The trouble is that I can’t work for long at a time. My worst tribulation is perpetual fatigue.”

Yet none of this struggle is audible in the trio, where Fauré quickly replaced clarinet with violin (though either works). The three movements form an intensely personal statement—the voice of a composer who, after 20 years of growing deafness and distorted hearing, had turned inward. Here, Fauré reaches new depths of expression and emotional compression, drawing inevitable comparisons with Beethoven’s late chamber works.

The first movement—a sonata-allegro of traditional proportions—unfolds with supple rhythms and shifting harmonies. A rhapsodic, restless first theme sings in the cello over flowing piano lines. A second, closely related theme emerges on piano, then strings, rising and falling in a smooth arc. Syncopated twos against threes add momentum before both themes combine in the coda.

The slow movement, the first composed, pares back romantic excess in favor of clarity and traditional French transparency of texture. Florent Schmitt, Fauré’s pupil, aptly described the trio as “thin as Rameau, serene and strong as Bach, and tenderly persuasive as Fauré himself.” Two themes sustain its long, meditative arc: first, a lyrical dialogue between the strings over pulsing piano chords; then a contrasting piano-led theme, introducing chromatic contrapuntal momentum. Together they create a movement of serene breadth.

The third movement opens with a bold call from the strings, answered by the piano. Scherzo and finale combined, it creates a refined, elliptical energy, shaped by irregular phrase lengths. Built on a compressed sonata form, with its themes returning in reverse order, the music radiates joy and élan—masking any sign of the ‘perpetual fatigue’ that plagued Fauré in his final years.