“I suppose, if one were forced to name Faure’s ‘chef d’oeuvre’, those who know his work 
best would agree on the Second Piano Quintet (1921). In it is embodied a pure well of 
spirituality, a humanizing force such as is found in only the greatest masters.”

Twenty-three-year-old Aaron Copland, studying in Paris with former Fauré pupil Nadia Boulanger, wrote these perspicacious words for the American and international readership of The Music Quarterly just weeks before Fauré’s death. Fauré’s Op. 115 does, indeed, speak with the joy and energy of a composer at the peak of his creative writing, while also revealing profundity of musical expression embracing a note of resignation, 
perhaps—yet not betraying any world weariness, or self-pity for the physical fatigue from a body that was showing increasing signs of weakness. After uncertainty over the absence of a scherzo in the First Quintet, 
Fauré now returns—for the last time—to the four-movement plan, with the scherzo and slow movement the first to be composed. 

The opening movement borrows structural ideas from the first Quintet, with three themes in a perpetual state of modulation, making the home key of C minor infrequently visited. The broad opening theme is shared among the strings, often in dialogue, bringing a feeling of space, even grandeur to the musical texture. The themes are clearly presented in each of the three sections and even combined and layered over one another towards the end. The piano writing is again lean and stripped down to essentials, including no shortage of rapid-fire sixteenths. 

The scherzo is a triumph, its tonality teasing the ears with shifting modality and sequential modulations, all written with impeccable skill, French precision, and élan. The Andante moderato brings the wisdom of old age to its introversion and feeling of time having passed, as three main ideas are developed and lovingly revealed. The finale gives the short opening melody again to the viola before it broadens through the violins to two more themes from which Fauré generates an exuberant, light-textured movement with a decisive C major ending. 

(See the July 5th Fauré Project program note for timeline of Fauré’s life.) 

— All program notes copyright © 2025 Keith Horner. 
Comments welcomed: khnotes@sympatico.ca