Clair de lune (Fauré)
{{short description|Song by Gabriel Fauré, composed in 1887 to words by Paul Verlaine}}
"Clair de lune", ("Moonlight") Op. 46 No 2, is a song by Gabriel Fauré, composed in 1887 to words by Paul Verlaine.
History
Fauré's 1887 setting of the poem was for voice and piano; but in 1888, at the instigation of the Princesse de Polignac, he made a version for voice and orchestra, first performed at the Société Nationale de Musique in April of that year, with the tenor Maurice Bàges as soloist.Nectoux, p. 338Nectoux, p. 540 In its orchestral form the song was included in Fauré's incidental music Masques et bergamasques in 1919. The original published version (Hamelle, Paris, 1888) is in B-flat minor. The song is dedicated to Fauré's friend the painter Emmanuel Jadin, who was a talented amateur pianist.Nectoux, pp. 67 and 540
The pianist Graham Johnson notes that it closes Fauré's second period and opens the doors into his third. Johnson notes that it is "for many people the quintessential French mélodie".Johnson, Graham (2005). Liner notes to Hyperion CD CDA 67334
Lyric
The lyric is from Paul Verlaine's early collection Fêtes galantes (1869). It inspired not only Fauré but Claude Debussy, who set it in 1881 and wrote a well known piano piece inspired by it in 1891.
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| + French |
| style="text-align:center" | Clair de lune |
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| + English |
| style="text-align:center" | Moonlight |
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Notes references and sources
=Notes=
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=References=
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=Sources=
- {{cite book|last= Nectoux |first= Jean-Michel |others=Roger Nichols (trans.)|year= 1991|title= Gabriel Fauré – A Musical Life |location= Cambridge |publisher= Cambridge University Press |isbn= 978-0-521-23524-2}}
External links
- {{IMSLP2|work=2 Songs, Op.46 (Fauré, Gabriel)|cname=2 Songs, Op.46 }}
{{Gabriel Fauré}}
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