Helena Kean - Music and Images

Gabriel Fauré 1845-1924 Born in 1845 in Ariège, Gabriel Urbain Fauré was to become the most advanced composer of his generation. His harmonic and melodic innovations would profoundly influence many early C20th composers. He anticipated Impressionism creating a unique and identifiable style, a personal musical language. His mother’s family were minor aristocrats and his father was the director of a teacher training college at Montgauzy, near Foix. During the first four years of his life, Fauré was sent to a nurse in a neighbouring village. On his return he found his mother and father were generally too busy to spend much time with him or his siblings and were very strict. His main solace was the large garden at Montgauzy, where he could escape from the austere family house into a world of Mediterranean trees – pines, cypresses, magnolias, cedars, and beautiful flowers, which made a lasting impression on him. Montgauzy’s “Jardin Clos” was a priest’s garden, with sweet-smelling flow...