Gabriel Fauré – Clair de lune (from 2 songs Op. 46, 1888) [Score]

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924), "Clair de lune" from 2 songs Op. 46, 1888, for voice and piano. Poem by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896).

Janet Baker: Mezzo-soprano
Gerald Moore: Piano
1970

In Fauré's setting of Les Présents -- the first of his Two Songs, Op. 46 (1887) -- Villiers de l'Isle Adam's elusive poetry seems to hover between joy and sadness, twilight, and myth. The Watteau paysage of its companion, Clair de lune -- Fauré's first Verlaine setting -- is enveloped in the moonlight of pure fantasy as archetypal stick-figure masqueraders "Play the lute and dance/And are almost sad under their fantastic disguises!" An impassive vocal line croons in merely occasional agreement with the piano's quasi-plucked accompaniment, which is caught up and engulfed in an archaic minuet which eventually gives way to arpeggiated rapport with the vocal line before the suddenly enchanted exclamation "Au calme clair de lune, triste et beau...." Soon, though, the minuet returns to reach its cadence.

Clair de lune represents Fauré's first excursion into the ideal landscape to which he would return several times as a supreme master of the mélodie - notably, in the Mélodies de Venise, Op. 58 (1891), La Bonne Chanson, Op. 61 (1892-1894), and the fantastic divertissement Masques et bergamasques, Op. 112 (1919), in which Clair de lune would find its predestined place. By contrast, Debussy's second, more successful setting of Clair de lune, from his first collection of Fêtes galantes (1891), perhaps protests too much in sensuous striving to evoke a realm which Fauré calls up persuasively in a subtle, deceptively simple fait accompli.
*
Gabriel Urbain Fauré (French: [ɡabʁiɛl yʁbɛ̃ fɔʁe];12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers. Among his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune". Although his best-known and most accessible compositions are generally his earlier ones, Fauré composed many of his most highly regarded works in his later years, in a more harmonically and melodically complex style.
*
Paul-Marie Verlaine (/vɛərˈlɛn/;[1] French: [vɛʁlɛn(ə)]; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the fin de siècle in international and French poetry.

(Wikipedia)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I DO NOT own the AUDIO neither the SCORE. I don't earn anything by doing this video and it has been done only for didactical purposes. Copyrights go to all the artists.

[revolutionaryviews]

Haunting, like a walk through a Victorian graveyard full of marble statues...goose bumps.

[arishzager]

Many Thanks for uploading. what a good piece

[TempeL]

이 곡은 1887년에 베를렌느의 시에 음악을 붙인 것이다.
(화성어법을 확장시켜 시의 내용을 표현)
포레는 이 곡에 “미뉴에트”라는 부제를 달았는데, 피아노 성부가 4마디 단위로 움직이는 단조의 미뉴에트 춤곡을 연상 시킨다.
어렴풋하고 몽롱한 달빛을 5개의 내림표(b)를 가진 조성과 옛 선법의 분위기를 고풍스럽게 표현한 것이며, 마지막 4개의 행에 해당하는 마디 38부터의 음악은 춤이 조용하고 슬픈 달빛과 어우러지며 함께 우울해지는 가사를 반영한다. 또한 시에서 노래하는 슬픔과 황홀함의 교차를 훌륭하게 표현하고 있다.

[pietrolandri]

Janet Baker voice is touching ... this song is beautiful because of contrast between the flow {with ripples) of piano and the "chante grégorien" of voice "cantus firmus"

[lawrencewhyte]

Just as good as it’s Debussy counterpart