by Wong Cheung Chun Chee, Josephine. / Bibliography: leaves 72-73 / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1985

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In the field of musicology, most commentators agree that the late style of Gabriel Faure is highly contrapuntal. At the same time, no systematic or generally accepted methodology exists for the discussion of the way in which Faure combines individual lines, except for Robert Orledge's brief enumeration of Faure's preferred procedures with respect to such things as time and interval of entry. In this thesis, I develop a method for examining counterpoint in selected songs from the late-style song cycle, La Chanson d'Eve. This is based on historical information concerning Faure's education, his pedagogical habits, and his comments concerning the composition of Penelope which was written during the same time period as the songs. This methodology is then applied to an examination of the interaction between the voice and piano, something Orledge has referred to as the "Themeless Contrapuntal Duet." Since Faure himself claimed that he combined motives according to the poetic context, I have also tried to show instances in which their content may be influenced by the text. Finally, I show how these cells of simultaneously sounding motives may be used to create a larger sense of form.

This dissertation argues how motivic saturation on the musical surface complicates a conventional harmonic interpretation in Fauré's late chamber works. Using motivic segmentation and linear analysis, I illustrate how the abundance of foreground motives has far-reaching implications for tonal voice leading and overall coherence. The outcomes of motivic saliency are twofold, influencing harmonic progressions by 1) altering traditional syntax or 2) replacing traditional syntax to provide the primary form of tonal coherence. I unpack the voice-leading consequences of stratifying motives over one another and bring in two larger, emerging concepts: 1) key duality as disjunction between melody and bass and 2) tonal coherence from the tonal profile of motives. In the first case, either the melody or the bass projects its own center or key separate from the other parts, producing a sensation of key duality. In the second, a single motive furnishes the main source of tonal grounding by unfolding a structural harmony that the surface sonorities obscure. While motivic saliency is a consistent trait across Fauré's late repertoire, the two phenomena above increase over time.

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In this dissertation, I argue that Fauré’s reuse and recombination of certain material musical elements throughout his life deserves recognition as a central aspect of his musical style. The inspiration for my work has primarily been drawn from the work of the musicologist Carlo Caballero, who argues that Fauré would have believed that consistency of style over time, or homogeneity, is a crucial property of any music that is truly original. Yet, few scholars have analyzed the degree to which homogeneity is manifest in Fauré’s music. More often, their focus has been directed at analyzing topics within segments of the three major periods of Fauré’s compositional output and highlighting stylistic contrasts between those periods. In contrast to this more common approach, I build on Caballero’s ideas to present a two-stage argument. First, I delineate certain criteria fundamental to defining a musical style, and observe that a straightforward classification of Fauré’s music is not easily discerned upon applying those criteria to Fauré’s music. Second, I offer support for the more novel perspective that acknowledging homogeneity itself, absent the need to classify the music materially, constitutes an important, informative perspective on Fauré's musical style. The dissertation is structured in two parts. Part I, encompassing the first three chapters, reviews the struggle to gain widespread understanding that Fauré’s music has historically faced. Chapter 1 discusses the criteria of style as they have historically been understood and used; Chapter 2 applies those criteria to Fauré’s music; and Chapter 3 explores Caballero’s assertion that Fauré’s music should in fact display homogeneity. In order to support Caballero’s claim, the following seven chapters of Part II present analytic evidence from the piano Nocturnes. Chapters 4 through 10 identify recurring usages of harmony, tonality, motivic processes, formal events, and textures by Fauré in Nocturnes dating from all three major periods of his compositional life. I conclude that a strong degree of homogeneity has been demonstrated across the piano Nocturnes, and suggest ways in which that perspective can contribute to more widespread understanding and dissemination of Fauré’s music.

In this dissertation, I systematize transformations among chords, referential collections, and their constituent subsets, as exemplified in analyses of music by Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Lili Boulanger. I characterize the effect of these transformations by supplanting notions of consonance and dissonance with a physics metaphor—the dichotomy and interdependence of centripetal and centrifugal force—to emphasize transformational processes over synchronic constructs, particularly notions of distance. Drawing from intercardinal voice-leading principles of transformational theory and graphical models of neo-Riemannian theory, I demystify harmonic/tonal practices salient in early twentieth-century French music, connect such practices with those of preceding tonal/evolutionary stages, and posit the effect of these practices in a way that reflects their intrinsically diachronic, centrifugal nature. I ultimately offer what I call “Collection Space”—a parsimonious intercardinal voice-leading space for maximally and nearly even sets—as a representative transformational space of French scalar tonality, analogized with the pan-triadic and Tristan-genus systems. My findings yield a revitalized approach to analyzing works by Debussy and Fauré as well as provide a rigorous analytical account of Lili Boulanger’s music hitherto unexplored. / Music Theory

The romantic piano literature contains three important collections of nocturnes. The nocturnes of John Field (1782-1837) were the first to appear, and were followed by collections from Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) and Gabriel Faure (1845-1924). While the relationship of the nocturnes of Field to those of Chopin is well documented, the corresponding relationship between Faure and Chopin is not. This study contains a detailed examination of this relationship, and shows the precise nature of Chopin's strong influence on Faure's early nocturnes, as well as the nature of Faure's growth from that influence. Chopin's influence was strongest in the area of harmonic language, as Faure carried certain of Chopin's techniques to logical extremes. Faure also adopted ternary form as the important form for the piece from Chopin. Faure's use of this form shows both similarities and differences from that found in Chopin. Faure's early nocturnes employ the same basic textures as Chopin's nocturnes, but Faure's later works abandon this in favor of increasingly contrapuntal writing. Chopin's influence is weakest in the area of melodic construction, as Faure's melodies often show a rigorous motivic construction which is not found in Chopin.

Malgré la notoriété de Gabriel Fauré, le style particulier de sa musique chambre reste encore difficile à appréhender par l’analyse. La construction formelle y est un réel sujet de questionnement. Tandis que certains analystes essaient d’attester son originalité en examinant en quoi elle s’éloigne de la tradition, d’autres proposent des analyses de la dynamique caractéristique de ses thèmes, dont le développement continu aboutit à la réalisation de la grande forme. Ces dernières se sont jusqu’à présent appuyées sur un corpus limité. Cette thèse se propose d’élargir le corpus aux cinq grandes œuvres de chambre pour cordes et piano – deux Quatuors op. 15 et 45, deux Quintettes op. 89 et 115 et le Trio op. 120 et d’y cerner la « dynamique formelle ». Après l’étude des témoignages de l’époque du compositeur qui permet de mettre en relief la conception de l’originalité formelle dans son œuvre, l’analyse porte sur l’agencement interne des thèmes et sur la réalisation de la grande forme à partir de l’étude des partitions mais aussi à l’aide d’une représentation donnée par un logiciel informatique qui permet de visualiser l’enveloppe dynamique et de repérer des climax. En révélant en quoi consiste ce processus, la présente thèse contribue à mieux rendre compte du style personnel de Fauré et de la façon dont il élabore une musique qui donne l’impression d’une progression et d’un développement continus se prolongeant jusqu’à la fin de l’œuvre. / Despite the notoriety of Gabriel Fauré’s musical style, the particular style of his chamber music still remains difficult to comprehend by analysis. Formal construction is a real subject of question. While some analysts try to attest to his originality by examining how it departs from tradition, others offer analyses of the dynamic characteristic of its themes, whose continuous development leads to the realization of large form. The latter have so far relied on a limited corpus of works. This thesis proposes to expand the corpus to the five large chamber works for strings and piano - two Quartets op. 15 and 45, two Quintets op. 89 and 115 and the Trio op. 120 in order to define the “formal dynamics.” After the study of testimonies from the composer's time that highlights the formal originality in his work, the subsequent analysis deals with the internal arrangement of themes and the realization of large form from the study of scores. I conduct my analysis with the help of graphic representation created by a computer software that can visualize the enveloping dynamic and identify climaxes. By revealing the contents of this process, this thesis helps to better reflect the very personal style of Fauré and the way in which he creates music that gives the impression of continuous progression and development extending to the end of the work.

Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem, Op. 48 was an evolving work, which he continued to revise from its inception in 1887 until the published version of 1900. The focus and intent of this paper is to present a detailed analysis of Requiem, Op. 48 as well as historical background to aid conductors in the preparation and performance of this work. Discussions include the history of the requiem mass as a liturgical form, the evolution of Requiem, Op. 48, the John Rutter edition (1984) and his research, and a conductor’s analysis addressing issues of harmony, form, and style.