Gabriel Fauré, Au bord le l’eau
French text by:
René François Armand (Sully) Prudhomme (1839 – 1907) was a French poet and essayist, winner of the first Nobel Prize in Literature, in 1901.
Born in Paris, Prudhomme originally studied to be an engineer, but turned to philosophy and later to poetry; he declared it as his intent to create scientific poetry for modern times. In character sincere and melancholic, he was linked to the Parnassus school, although, at the same time, his work displays characteristics of its own.
Au bord de l’eau comes from Les vaines tendresses, which he wrote in 1875.
S'asseoir tous deux au bord flot qui passe,
Le voir passer ;
Tous deux, s'il glisse un nuage en l'espace,
Le voir glisser ;
À l'horizon, s'il fume un toit de chaume,
Le voir fumer ;
Aux alentours si quelque fleur embaume,
S'en embaumer ;
Si quelque fruit, où les abeilles goûtent,
Tente, y goûter ;
Si quelque oiseau, dans les bois qui l'écoutent,
Chante, écouter
Entendre au pied du saule où l'eau murmure
L'eau murmurer ;
Ne pas sentir, tant que ce rêve dure,
Le temps durer ;
Mais n'apportant de passion profonde
Qu'à s'adorer,
Sans nul souci des querelles du monde,
Les ignorer ;
Et seuls, heureux devant tout ce qui lasse,
Sans se lasser,
Sentir l'amour, devant tout ce qui passe,
Ne point passer!
To sit together beside the passing stream
and watch it pass;
if a cloud glides by in the sky,
together to watch it glide;
if a thatched house sends up smoke on the horizon,
to watch it smoke;
if a flower spreads fragrance nearby,
to take on its fragrance;
under the willow where the water murmurs,
to listen to it murmuring;
for the time that this dream endures,
not to feel its duration;
but, having no deep passion
except adoration for one another,
without concern for the world's quarrels,
to ignore them;
and alone together, in the face of all wearying things,
unwearyingly,
to feel love (unlike all things that pass away)
not passing away!
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
Music
Aaron Copland wrote that although Fauré's works can be divided into the usual three periods, there is no such radical difference between his first and last manners as is evident with many other composers. Copland found premonitions of Fauré's last manner in even his earliest works, and traces of the early Fauré in the works of his old age: "The themes, harmonies, form, have remained essentially the same, but with each new work they have all become more fresh, more personal, more profound."
Influences on Fauré, particularly in his early work, included Mozart, Chopin and Schumann. The authors of The Record Guide (1955) wrote that Fauré learnt restraint and beauty of surface from Mozart, tonal freedom and long melodic lines from Chopin, "and from Schumann, the sudden felicities in which his development sections abound, and those codas in which whole movements are briefly but magically illuminated." His work was based on the strong understanding of harmonic structures that he gained at the École Niedermeyer from Niedermeyer's successor Gustave Lefèvre. Lefèvre wrote the book Traité d'harmonie (Paris, 1889), in which he sets out a harmonic theory that differs significantly from the classical theory of Jean-Philippe Rameau, no longer outlawing certain chords as "dissonant".By using unresolved mild discords and colouristic effects, Fauré anticipated the techniques of Impressionist composers.
In contrast with his harmonic and melodic style, which pushed the bounds for his time, Fauré's rhythmic motives tended to be subtle and repetitive, with little to break the flow of the line, although he used discreet syncopations, similar to those found in Brahms's works.Copland referred to him as "the Brahms of France". Jerry Dubins posited in 2007 in Fanfare Magazine that Fauré is the "missing link" between Brahms and Debussy.
To Sackville-West and Shawe-Taylor, Fauré's later works do not display the easy charm of his earlier music: "the luscious romantic harmony which had always been firmly supported by a single tonality, later gave way to a severely monochrome style, full of enharmonic shifts, and creating the impression of several tonal centres simultaneously employed."
Vocal music
Fauré is regarded as one of the masters of the French art song, or mélodie. In Copland's view, the early songs were written under the influence of Gounod, and except for isolated songs such as "Après un rêve" or "Au bord de l'eau" there is little sign of the artist to come. With the second volume of the sixty collected songs, Copland judged, came the first mature examples of "the real Fauré". He instanced "Les berceaux", "Les roses d'Ispahan" and especially "Clair de lune" as "so beautiful, so perfect, that they have even penetrated to America", and drew attention to less well known mélodies such as "Le secret", "Nocturne", and "Les présents". Fauré also composed a number of song cycles. Cinq mélodies "de Venise", Op. 58, was described by Fauré as a novel kind of song suite, in its use of musical themes recurring over the cycle. For the later cycle La bonne chanson, Op. 61, there were five such themes, according to Fauré. He also wrote that La bonne chanson was his most spontaneous composition, with Emma Bardac singing back to him each day's newly written material.
The Requiem, Op. 48, was not composed to the memory of a specific person but, in Fauré's words, "for the pleasure of it." It was first performed in 1888. It has been described as "a lullaby of death" because of its predominantly gentle tone. Fauré omitted the Dies Irae, though reference to the day of judgment appears in the Libera me, which, like Verdi, he added to the normal liturgical text.Fauré revised the Requiem over the years, and a number of different performing versions are now in use, from the earliest, for small forces, to the final revision with full orchestra.
Fauré's operas have not found a place in the regular repertoire. Copland called Pénélope a fascinating work, and one of the best operas written since Wagner. He noted, however, that the music is, as a whole, "distinctly non-theatrical." The work uses leitmotifs, and the two main roles call for voices of heroic quality, but these are the only ways in which the work is Wagnerian. In Fauré's late style, "tonality is stretched hard, without breaking."
