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I was very lucky: my first piano teacher, Jacques Bloch, himself a pupil of
Lazare-Lévy, adored themusic of Gabriel Fauré. All throughmy childhood,
I heard him play
Thème et Variations
, nocturnes, barcarolles and
impromptus. Later, at the Paris Conservatoire, it was Dominique Merlet
who kept the flame burning. A disciple of Roger-Ducasse (probably the
musician closest to Fauré), he introduced me to the
Ballade
, but also to
those late pieces that are still intimidating, even today – I’m thinking of
the last nocturnes and the fourth and fifth impromptus. Subsequently I
added to my repertoire almost all the
mélodies
and the chamber works.
As always, immersing oneself in all the strata of a composer’s œuvre
makes it possible to recreate a world, with its spirit, its colours, its
perfumes, its idioms, its ideals, and to gain a better grasp of its evolutions,
its singularities and its sources of inspiration.
Among such sources of inspiration, the caressing pianism of the
Ballade
evokes those black keys of which Chopin was so fond (the
Berceuse
, the
Barcarolle, the Étude op.10 no.5, the Impromptus opp.36 and 51). The
middle section of Fauré’s Nocturne no.2 seems to emerge from one of
Schumann’s
Bunte Blätter
. And the central part of the Nocturne no.4
makes me think of the ecstasy of Tristan and Isolde in the second act of
Wagner’s opera.
20 FAURÉ