The closing years of Fauré life were marred by money-worries as weil as by failing health. It was in order to try and relieve this financial distress that the composer's loyal friend Maillot - his host at Annecy in the last three summers of his life - organized a great concert of his works at the Sorbonne (20th June 1922) . The authorities gave their support to the concert at a later stage. So far that year Fauré had completed no new works, and the Trio which his publisher Durand had suggested he should write nad progressed no further than a few sketches - with which Fauré was far from satisfied . The heart and soul within him were still youthful, but it afflicted him deeply to know that his old body was wearing out. In a pathetic note (Nice, 2nd February) he wrote : "I am well. They say I look very well, but in the street I too e a very old gentleman who can only walk very, very slowly! Confound old age! Why on earth can't buy oneself new lungs and new legs when the old ones wear out!"
The peace he found at Annecy did more for him than Nice or Argeles had done. "At last." he announced on 5 September, "I have started work again!" And on the 26th : " I am writing a trio for clarinet (or violin), cello and piano. of this a long movement, begun here a month ago, is actually finished." This was the Andantino. The two faster movements were written in Paris in the wonter of 1922-3, and the work had its first public performance there in June 1923 - with Cortot, Thibaud and Casals. After this concert Fauré went to Annecy, and a few days later he received a letter from Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians - dedicatee of the Sonata Op. 108 : " Cher maitre," the Queen wrote, '" have heard your beautiful Trio. I moved me deeply. It is a great work, full of poetic charm. It filled me, as your other compostions do, with inexpressible delight. I was so sorry you were not with me when I heard it. The musiciens who performed It so admirably also played me my Sonata. That dedication trom the great and be 0 ed composer is so precious to me!"
Fauré's biographers do not, in general, share the Queen's perceptive enthusiasm. Even Vuillermoz is oddly unforthcoming on e subject of the Trio. "The musIc IS so reserved and restrained," writes Claude Rostand, "that at first one wonders whether this Trio is really as powerful as the other late works. But it probably is." It certainly is, we reply. Its limpidity and radiance of line make it fully the equal of the other chamber works. With Ravel's Piano Trio it is the most perfect 20th-century specimen of the genre. (It is strange that the pubtished version of the work makes no mention of the clarinet alternative originally Intended by Fauré. The experiment of replacing the violin with a clarinet should certainly be made, for it could only add to the charm of the music.)
This is. in. classical sonata-form, with two development-sections. It bears a resemblance to the equally melodiC flrst movement of the Cello Sonata Op. 117. The absence of accidentals gives the harmony a Dorian qualilty that is typical of Fauré, and adds to the unearthly serenity and detachment of the music. The cantabile opening th.eme IS first heard of the cello, then expanded by the violin. But it quickly gives way to a second theme, Introduced by the plano (in B flat) and taken up by violin and cello (in F) with a subsidiary motif which grows out of the short bridge-passage that linked the first and second subjects. The ensuing development-section starts wlch the first subject (in a slightly more elaborate form) in the bass of the piano. Then both elements of the second subject are treated contrapuntally, and at one point combined with the first subject. A great crescendo takes the music upwards, a tone at a time. Then comes the recapitulation, beginning with a fortissimo descending scale for the violin, in octaves. A vigorous coda follows. The importance given to the flattened leading-note reaffirms the modal character of the entire movement.
Formal Analysis exposition - bars 1-106; development-section 107-210; recapitulation 211-274; closing development-section 275-318; coda 319-342.
This movement, the largest in scale and the most sublimely inspired of the three, is mainly based on the cantabile theme first heard on the violin and then answered by the cello. This theme is developed in a great 12-bar phrase which brings out all its poetic charm and tenderness. Then the piano offers a secondary theme of ineffable pathos, and makes four separate attempts to escape from the predestined key of 0 minor: but Faure's characteristic harmonic magic is for once impotent. "Now my charms are all o'erthrown," as Prospero says in the Epilogue to The Tempest. Faure then returns to his opening theme - though this is no mere literal repetition. In the middle of the mover:nent we. have a.n extraordinary syncopated tune from the piano - a kind of airy nothing, completely without weight. This tune is raised higher and higher in steps of a tone - and is soon heard in combi~ation w.ith the initial theme (played by the piano). All this leads on to a full recapitulation of the F major opening, together with the subsidiary episode. Then comes some fresh material - a modul~ting crescendo (two bars of which anticipate the Andante of the String Quartet). This is full of intenslt~ . When the second theme returns the piano at once replies with the opening material, which makes a final appearance in the long and serene coda - almost Brucknerian in its vigorous insistence on the home key of F major
Formal analysis:A - bars 1-33; B 34-67; A 68-107; coda (B, then A) 108-136.
This brief movement has the tempo and outward character of a Scherzo, ~ith the infinitely. more complex spirit of an anguished humoresque. How are we to interpret the dramatic cry of the opening - where the violin and cello accurately quote that famous exclamation "Ridi, Pagliaccio!"? . Fauré detested the works of the verismo school : and yet. the echo can hardly have been fortuitous. Have we here the bitterness of the dying actor as he takes hiS bow : a disillusioned "Finita la commedia" - or else a cry of defiance directed at tille, destiny, old age? This second explanation seems to be borne out by the rest of the movement, for It ends In the customary mood cheerfulness. Be that as it may, the opening phrases are answered by the piano with the germ of principal theme. This dialogue affords a complete introduction (an unusual state of affairs with Fauré), and it is not until the 61st bar that the main theme - on the cello, in D minor - gets going. The second subject comprises two elements: one of these is given to the strings (it derives from the anapaestic rhythm of the principal theme, of whose melody it forms an inversion) and the other - light and insouciant - to the piano. After a dialogue between these two otifs t e de elopment-section begins with a canonic treatment of the principal theme, followed by t e reappearance of the second subject, and then by a return to the main theme - this time treated in stretto in a canon at the second, at the distance of one bar. The theme from Pagliacci plays an important part in what follows. Then a brief reference to the principal theme leads to a full recapitulation of t e second subject, in D major. The main theme, presented in a new way, then returns, followed b a substantial passage built up on the phrase from Pagliacci. "Ridi, Pagliaccio!" triumphs in the coda, wi geuine laughter this time. All the elements of this subtle and complex piece are ultimately related, for all its brevity.
Formal analysis Introduction - bars 1-60; exposition 61-153; development-section 154-267; recapitulation (reversing the order of the themes) 268-354; coda 355-417.
Brussels, June 1970
Harry HALBREICH
Marinkyo's School > Gabriel Fauré > Notes by Harry Halbreich > Trio for piano, violin and cello in d minor Op.120 by Harry Halbreich
