Ever since I learned and played Faure’s Theme and Variations, I have been bitten with the Faure bug. His music is very intoxicating, and I have my teacher Marian Hahn to thank for introducing me. Others like Ken Johansen and Roy Howat have also been instrumental in the development of this new love, as their lives intercepted mine. Now at IU I’m in the company of wonderful pianists like Jean-Louis Haguenauer and Emile Naoumoff, the later of the two who has transcribed Faure’s requiem for solo piano!

A 2001 article on Fauré in Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians writes: “He developed a musical idiom all his own; by subtle application of old modes, he evoked the aura of eternally fresh art; by using unresolved mild discords and special coloristic effects, he anticipated procedures of Impressionism; in his piano works, he shunned virtuosity in favor of the Classical lucidity …  the precisely articulated melodic line of his songs is in the finest tradition of French vocal music.”

I hope you enjoy this new addition to my collection of videos… Gabriel Faure’s first Nocturne in Eb minor.