IV
None of the French composers has written more for the pianoforte than Gabriel Fauré. In his music, too, there is a strong element of tradition, though as a harmonist he is perhaps more spontaneously original than d’Indy. He prefers to work in short forms, and he avoids titles of detailed significance. He has written eleven Barcarolles, ten or more Nocturnes, nearly as many Impromptus, a set of eight Preludes, published as opus 103, and a few pieces of nondescript character including dances and romances. The impression made by a glance over the pages of this considerable amount of music is one of great sameness. Fauré’s style is delicate and well adjusted to the keyboard but there is little to observe in it that is strikingly original. Nor do the pieces give proof of much development in technique or in means of expression. There is little trace of the exquisite impressionism of the songs. The pianoforte music is hardly more than pleasing, and is only rarely brilliant.
The well-known second impromptu, in F minor, is perhaps the most interesting and the most original of all his pianoforte pieces. Here is genuine vivacity, piquancy of style, originality of harmony. But the other impromptus and the nocturnes have, in spite of certain modern touches of harmony, a style that is now Mendelssohn, now Schumann. The eleven Barcarolles rock gently over the keyboard, the Valses caprices dance lightly along. All is facile and pleasing salon music, one piece much like the others. The Theme and Variations, opus 73, is interesting and is well known at the Conservatoire, and the second of the preludes, opus 103, is decidedly effective. The fourth Nocturne is full of poetry. In fact there is poetry in much of his music, but it is on the whole too much in the same vein.
Finally, after mentioning Pierné, for the sake of a set of short pieces in delicate style, Pour mes petits amis, and Emanuel Chabrier for the sake of the Bourrée fantastique, we come to the two men whose work for the piano has enchanted the world: Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel. So far as the pianoforte is concerned, theirs is the music which has created a new epoch since the time of Liszt and Chopin, which has signalized the leadership of France in the art of music.