24 FAURÉ ∙ NOCTURNES The Eleventh Nocturne is very special in this respect . . . Its tone is elegiac. Fauré dedicated it to the memory of Noémi Lalo, the young wife of the critic Pierre Lalo, who died before her time. Its unusual key gives it its tragic colour. Its sober, hieratic style, leaving room for silences, reveals a restrained yet intense emotion. Let’s go back in time to Nocturne no.7, in the dark key of C sharp minor: it seems to herald the austerity to come . . . It's almost funereal in mood. The sorrowful rhythm of its opening makes me think of a procession. It contains little in the way of melody, and is suffused with resignation, then anger and heartbreak. After a lyrical episode borrowing from the vocabulary of Romanticism, its sombre, oppressive atmosphere is lightened in the coda by the magic of enharmony, a typically Faurean device: the key of C sharp minor is transformed into D flat major, and the severity yields to gentleness and consolation through this inspired sleight of hand.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTAwOTQx