Gabriel Fauré Quotes

Phillips, Edward R. (2000). Gabriel Fauré: A Research and Information Guide. New York: Routledge. .

And I always enjoy seeing sunlight play on the rocks, the water, the trees and plains. What variety of effects, what brilliance and what softness... I wish my music could show as much diversity.

To know an art really well, one must know everything about it, both its origins and its development.

Laloy, Louis (December 1906). "Gabriel Fauré". The Music Lover's Calendar. Volume II.

When I am no more, you will hear said of my work: "After all, it is only so much..." You will detach yourself from it, perhaps ... All that has no importance. I have done what I could ... and so, judge, my God.

Elliot, Jr., Gilbert (July 1913). "Gabriel Fauré and His Songs". Harvard Musical Review. Volume 1, Number 10. pp. 10 and 25-27.

Gabriel Fauré, repeating a thought he had often expressed to me, wrote in a letter on the 2nd August 1910: "In piano music one cannot use padding; one must pay in cash so that it is interesting all the time. It is perhaps the most difficult genre if you want to be as satisfying as possible," and he added modestly, "and I do my best." Then, as if in reply to some unjust reproach, "Only it cannot be done any faster."

But Lortat, I'm not in the habit of attracting crowds.

As to the piece I have started, it will only be the fiftieth or more of my piano pieces that, with rare exceptions, pianists allow to pile up without playing, That has been their lot for twenty years."

Imagining is trying to formulate all one would wish to be better, all that surpasses reality.

Now, there are some periods of music, some pitches of which I can hear nothing... of my music as well as of others. I feel that there is on my shoulders nothing more than a terrible cloak of misery and discouragement.

It has been said that my Requiem does not express the fear of death and someone has called it a lullaby of death. But it is thus that I see death: as a happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience. The music of Gounod has been criticized for its over-inclination towards human tenderness. But his nature predisposed him to feel this way: religious emotion took this form inside him. Is it not necessary to accept the artist’s nature? As to my Requiem, perhaps I have also instinctively sought to escape from what is thought right and proper, after all the years of accompanying burial services on the organ! I know it all by heart. I wanted to write something different.

Mason, Daniel Gregory (1915). "Fauré and the Beginning of the New". The Art of Music: The Voice and Vocal Music. New York: The National Society of Music. pp. 347-353

He denied the presence of inspiration: "Without work, which is art, there is nothing," he said. "Say only that which is of value, or stay silent" was the credo of his entire existence.

How many times have I asked myself what use music is? And what am I translating? What feelings? What ideas? How can I express something I do not understand myself?