Gradus ad Parnassum: Selected early songs of gabriel Fauré in the socio-cultural context of his time

Roman, Zoltan (2007) Gradus ad Parnassum: Selected early songs of gabriel Fauré in the socio-cultural context of his time. Studia Musicologica, 48 (1-2). pp. 5-44. ISSN 1788-6244

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Abstract

Abstract Faué's mélodies have received too little attention. Here four early songs are subjected to musico-poetic and stylistic-technical analysis. To understand fully the young musician's achievement, the songs are viewed in their socio-cultural milieu. His earliest works date from the end of the Second Empire and the Franco-Prussian War; his first maturity coincided with the beginnings of la Belle Époque. Of modest origins, Fauré succeeded in earning the patronage of leading social and artistic figures of the time, including the venerable Franz Liszt, and the celebrated singer, composer and mistress of her own salon, Pauline Viardot. One mélodie each by these established composers is analyzed in comparison with the two musico-poetically similar pieces by the young Frenchman. These juxtapositions show clearly that Fauré followed his own path from the outset, in a direction that was altogether forward-oriented, even where it was built of stones borrowed from the past.

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