Description: Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) composed his thirteen Nocturnes over a forty-six-year period from 1875-1921 which track the development of his unique compositional style. The first three nocturnes are rather conventional nineteenth-century salon works reminiscent of “songs without words,” but already show signs of the harmonic distinctiveness to come. The next five nocturnes are more complex, but not revolutionary by Debussy’s standards of originality. Fauré’s music up to 1902 can be seen as an important step on the path between late Romanticism and the experimentation of the early twentieth century. However, the post-1908 nocturnes (Nos. 9-13) are decidedly in a category all to themselves, avoiding all manner of ornament, decoration, and sentimentality. These works are haunting in their enigmatic austerity and seriousness, and exceedingly difficult to perform well. As Fauré once said, “J’ai reculé les limites du raffinement.” (“I have drawn back the limits of over-refinement [affectation].”) Fauré’s nocturnes are intimate, delicate, elusive, reflective works constructed with a solid mastery of compositional technique and understanding of the piano’s resonances. Their musical sensibility is very sophisticated, especially in the later works which encompass a complex harmonic world of extended tonality and modality that is both very personalized and strange. His melodies are continuously unfolding, yet are restrained in their expression. This new Masters Music edition by Richard Dowling was prepared in a careful evaluation of the second corrected 1922 and 1924 editions by Hamelle. In all of the nocturnes, a few markings such as slurs and accents have been added or changed for the sake of conformity in recurrences of identical phrasing and articulation. Numerous corrections have been made to the original misprints of accidentals. Fingerings have been added and also some suggestions of redistribution of notes between the hands in order to make certain complicated passages easier to play. Some additional pedaling suggestions have been added in parentheses as well. The complete collection of Dowling’s edition of Nocturnes are available in two volumes. Volume 1 includes Nos. 1-6 (M394991) and Volume 2 includes Nos. 7-13 (M381791).

• M394991 / 36-M394991 NOCTURNES, NOS. 1-6 BK $19.95Buy Now