It has been claimed time and again that Gabriel Fauré was a reluctant and indeed unsuccessful composer for orchestra. Fauré certainly appears to take little interest in symphonic tone and timbre. The 100th anniversary of the composer’s death on 4 November 2024 offers an opportunity to reassess his orchestral oeuvre.

It has often been stated that Gabriel Fauré was both a reluctant and unsuccessful orchestrator of his own music. It cannot be denied that, as successor to Hector Berlioz and contemporary of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, Fauré as an orchestrator appears less adventurous and less focused on the element of orchestral timbre. And yet…

As Jean-Michel Nectoux points out in his biography “Gabriel Fauré, Les voix du clair-obscur”, Fauré wrote a very considerable amount of orchestral music, and his career as orchestrator of his own compositions began in his student years: “Super Flumina Babylonis” (N 6), an 1863 setting of Psalm 137, contains imaginative writing for all sections of the orchestra, for example. His education, from 1854, took place at the École Niedermeyer, an establishment primarily devoted to the study of religious music and the training of organists, although the young Fauré followed the courses in ‘instrumentation’ given by Gustave Lefèvre, the School’s Director.  Some of Fauré’s early orchestral compositions, the Violin Concerto op.14 (N 47) and “Symphonie en fa” op. 20 (N 57), for example, remained incomplete, with orchestral techniques at a relatively early stage of development, although his teacher Saint-Saëns must have been encouraging to his protégé, and Fauré’s desire to write for the orchestra remained undiminished throughout his life, even if he viewed the task of orchestrating as subsequent to the process of composition, rather than integral to it.

Clues as to Fauré’s approach to orchestral timbre can be found in his own writings, and it is clear that he viewed with suspicion the increasing emphasis on orchestral colour and effects, which was becoming evident, from his early years in the music of Berlioz, subsequently in the scores of Dukas, Debussy and others, to say nothing of Stravinsky’s revolutionary sound worlds. It is true that his purely symphonic writing had somewhat limited success, abandoned after less than favourable reviews of the Symphonie en ré mineur op. 40 (N 86), but it is certainly not the case that he had no interest in orchestration, rather that he often resorted to extra-musical stimuli to fire his imagination.     

Two of Fauré’s most well-known works from 1887 demonstrate a confidence in handling orchestral timbre largely absent from earlier works: the “Pavane” op. 50 (N100) and the Requiem op. 48 (N97), parts of which date from the same year, with subsequent additional movements and orchestrations added later. The lightness of touch and clarity of texture in the Pavane are evidence that his orchestral style had come of age, despite his own comment, in a letter to his friend Marguerite Baugnies that the piece was “carefully conceived, certainly, but otherwise not significant.“ The Requiem, in its original 5-movement conception, made subtle orchestral choices which contribute in large measure to the enduring popularity of the work, particularly in its removal of violins from the sound world, a solo violin aside.  From this point on we can talk about a Fauréan orchestral style which, contrary to many subsequent comments, is full of colour, tonal subtlety and attention to matters of texture.

Notably, he took inspiration from the dramatic possibilities of theatre, especially in his three major scores of incidental music, “Caligula” (1888), “Shylock” (1889) and “Pelléas et Mélisande” (1898), each of which found further success in orchestral suite form (in 1888, 1890 and 1900 respectively). We need only think of the imaginative use of harp, woodwind and pizzicato strings in the “Air de danse” from Caligula (Jean-Michel Nectoux discerns the influence of Léo Delibes here), or the sinister soporific atmosphere of its final movement, played as the emperor is lulled to sleep before being murdered. Re-orchestration and expansion of the tonal palette always followed Fauré’s original stage music, and he refined his work in each orchestral suite. From Shylock, the intensity of expression in the famous Nocturne was achieved using multi-layered strings under a solo violin (perhaps an inspiration from the Requiem?) and the Final of that suite reproduces and further develops the balance and clarity already found in the earlier “Air de danse”:“Pelléas et Mélisande”, as is well known, was orchestrated for stage performances by Charles Kœchlin under Fauré’s supervision, in much the same way as Debussy employed André Caplet for many of his orchestral pages. In his preparation of the Suite, however, Fauré made many changes to the orchestration, expanding the original chamber formation to near symphonic proportions. Additional proof, if it were needed, of Fauré’s concern for orchestral colour and balance.

As well as his orchestral theatre scores, Fauré orchestrated a considerable number of his other works between 1880 and 1900, including the “Ballade” op. 19, N 56, “La Naissance de Vénus” op. 29,N 72,  “Madrigal” op. 35, N 78, several “Mélodies” and “La Passion”, N.109. He was never very far from an orchestral score during these years; in 1900, however, the arrival of his largest musical project, the open-air “Prométhée”, brought instrumental challenges for which he needed the services of an expert in military music, since the score included three large wind and brass orchestras. Camille Saint-Saëns encountered similar challenges in 1899 with his “Déjanire”, and both composers enlisted Charles Eustace, “chef de musique militaire” in Montpelier, to score the music for military forces. Fauré then began the task of arranging the vast score for symphonic forces, but eventually passed the work to his favourite pupil, Jean Roger-Ducasse, who, under Fauré’s supervision, produced a score which Fauré was delighted with.

“Pénélope”, N 174, Fauré’s operatic masterpiece was, contrary to much uninformed opinion, orchestrated in large measure by himself, and there is evidence that he took pleasure in the task. He orchestrated in sections, completing the orchestration of the Prelude (the first completed part of the opera) while the second act remained substantially to find, for example. In August 1908, from Lugano, where he was working on the opera, he wrote to his wife Marie: “Now that the Prelude is finished, I’m continuing this enjoyable orchestration work, and have begun to work on the first Scene. I’ve completed six pages of it.” The proof that Fauré took the work of orchestrating the opera very seriously is provided by his son Philippe, who relates that Fauré, dissatisfied with his early work, re-orchestrated in 1912 the first 50 pages of his score, originally completed in 1910.

From his earliest orchestral essais to his final page for orchestra, the “Pastorale” from the Suite “Masques et Bergamasques” op. 112 (N 185b), Fauré reveals himself to have been a consummate orchestrator, responding however at all times to his own artistic credo: avoidance of facile effects, concentration on expression of the emotional heart of his music. As Jean-Michel Nectoux observes, “The fundamental reason for Fauré’s subdued style of orchestration is to mirror his artistic aims: to express the most elevated sentiments by the simplest means.”

Robin Tait
(from „[t]akte“ 2023