Books, Arts & Manners: Faure & Co.

In a collection of his critical pieces, the composer Virgil Thomson notes the “deep loveliness” of Gabriel Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande. But in all other references, Fauré is but one in a list that almost always includes Ravel and Debussy. Paul Henry Lang, in his monumental history of Western music, gives Faure high marks—in one paragraph. Is Faure really no more than a semiquaver in post-Romantic music? He was a composer who could join together any half-dozen notes in touching melody, and whose deceptive appeal concealed rich and complex textures and patterns of probing subtlety.

In Pelleas, Faure not only invested the Maeterlinck work in music, he made himself part of it. And he did so in measures of a poignancy and delicate beauty that nevertheless abided by a basic rule of “incidental” music —that it must at all times dance, even in the molto adagio of Melisande’s death. It can be argued, with no pejorative implications, that Faure would have excelled at what in films is called “background” music, heightening the action while contributing to it. The score of Pelleas stands by itself with no need for a program, and its loveliness is indeed deep. You need never have heard of Maeterlinck to be held by it. In performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra—and conducted by Seiji Ozawa with pace, perception, and warmth—it is very fine. On the same CD (Deutsche Grammophon 423 089-2) are a number of shorter Faure pieces, including his Dolly (no kin to Hello), which I found most engaging.

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Ralph de Toledano

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In a collection of his critical pieces, the composer Virgil Thomson notes the “deep loveliness” of Gabriel Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande. But in all other references, Fauré is but one in a list that almost always includes Ravel and Debussy. Paul Henry Lang, in his monumental history of Western music, gives Faure high marks—in one paragraph. Is Faure really no more than a semiquaver in post-Romantic music? He was a composer who could join together any half-dozen notes in touching melody, and whose deceptive appeal concealed rich and complex textures and patterns of probing subtlety.

In Pelleas, Faure not only invested the Maeterlinck work in music, he made himself part of it. And he did so in measures of a poignancy and delicate beauty that nevertheless abided by a basic rule of “incidental” music —that it must at all times dance, even in the molto adagio of Melisande’s death. It can be argued, with no pejorative implications, that Faure would have excelled at what in films is called “background” music, heightening the action while contributing to it. The score of Pelleas stands by itself with no need for a program, and its loveliness is indeed deep. You need never have heard of Maeterlinck to be held by it. In performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra—and conducted by Seiji Ozawa with pace, perception, and warmth—it is very fine. On the same CD (Deutsche Grammophon 423 089-2) are a number of shorter Faure pieces, including his Dolly (no kin to Hello), which I found most engaging.