Gabriel Fauré

Faure got engaged to Marianne Viardot (daughter of Pauline Garcia- Viardot) in 1877 but it was called off by Marianne. This came as a big emotional setback for Faure and he eventually left Paris.

He later got married to Marie Frement (the daughter of Emmanuel Fremiet, a leading sculptor) in 1883, and had two sons.

His last years were plagued by ill-health caused mainly because of his heavy smoking but it did not keep him away from the young composers who were deeply devoted to him like the Les six.

Gabriel-Urbian Faure was born on May 12, 1845, in Pamires, Mid-Pyrenees, France to Toussaint and Marie Faure as the youngest of their six children.

For four years, Faure stayed with a wet nurse and was only brought back to the family when his father became the director of the Ecole Normale at Montgauzy.

Faure displayed early interest in music by playing the harmonium so he was put to learn the piano and organ at the age of 9 in October 1854. He was put in Ecole Niedermeyer (the school of religious music), Paris, where he took lessons to be a church organist and choirmaster.

His early music training began under the guidance of Camille Saint-Saens, who identified the talent Faure possessed and keenly spent time polishing him further. Faure’s bonding with him became strong enough to turn into a lifetime friendship.

Faure’s composition ‘Cantique de Jean Racine’, Op. 11 in school was acknowledged with the first prize, premiers prix in 1865.

The first appointment for Faure came from the Church of Saint –Sauveur at Rennes in Brittany as the chief organist. He remained in service for four years but a strained relationship with the priest resulted in his resignation.

He served the church of Notre-Dame de Clignancourt, in the north of Paris as an assistant organist for a few months in 1870 and the rest of year was spent in serving the army in the Franco-Prussian war.

He served as a music teacher in his school, Ecole Niedermeyer in Switzerland during the Paris Commune.

He returned to Paris in October 1871 whereby he started working as a choirmaster at the Eglise Saint- Sulpice under Charles-Marie Widor, the composer and organist.

Faure regularly visited Camille Saint- Saens and Pauline Garcia- Viardot musical salons wherein he got acquainted to some famous Parisian personalities like writers Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Turgenev and also composers like Hector Berlioz and Georges Bizet.

During his school days, Faure published his first composition which was a work for piano, titled Trois romances sans paroles in 1863.

The very popular composition ‘Requiem’ was composed in 1888 which is believed to be inspired by his parent’s death and brings forth the emotional turmoil he went through.

As a professor at the Conservatoire de Paris, he taught some great personalities like Maurice Ravel, Nadia Boulanger and Charles Koechlin. They together orchestrated for ‘Pelleas et Melisande’ which was one of Faure’s famous suite.

The piano duet, ‘Dolly Suite’ was written in 1890s along with a vocal composition for the wife of Claude Debussy, titled ‘La bonne chanson’.

Some of Faure’s exceptional orchestral works includes the orchestral suite entitled, Masues et bergamasques (based on music for a dramatic entertainment)