Top 10 Fauré albums
Gramophone
Monday, January 6, 2025
Outstanding recordings of Fauré's greatest works, featuring Marianne Crebassa, Quatuor Ebène, Steven Isserlis, Gérard Souzay and more
Gabriel Fauré's music is unmistakable, and once you have encountered his sound world through an outstanding recording, you won't want to leave. Here are 10 such recordings – dating from 70 years ago to the modern day – of 10 of his most beautiful works.
Violin Sonata No 1
Théotime Langlois de Swart, Tanguy de Williencourt
(Harmonia Mundi)
'The Fauré Sonata is all troubled elegance and understated passion, the anxious outpouring of the opening movement held in check by the refinement of the playing, the Scherzo suggesting brittle, uneasy humour beneath the surface brilliance, and the ambiguities of the finale beautifully revealed and explored.'
String Quartet in E minor, Op 121
Quatuor Ebène
(Erato)
'An extraordinary work by any standards, ethereal and other-worldly, with themes that seem constantly to be drawn skywards, Fauré’s Quartet responds well to the Ebène’s sensitised approach.'
Nocturnes & Barcarolles
Marc-André Hamelin pf
(Hyperion)
'To an unexpected degree, the pianist needs two entirely independent hands for this music, and hearing Hamelin play Fauré is like observing the workings of a luxury-brand wristwatch with its many interdependent and intricately connected parts working in perfect harmony to produce the movement you see on the clockface.'
Piano Quintets
Eric Le Sage; Quatuor Ébène (Alpha)
'Everywhere the pacing sounds utterly natural: Le Sage and the Ebène are the most persuasive guides through sometimes daunting terrain. This is a clear front-runner in this repertoire.'
Complete Songs
Cyrille Dubois, Tristan Raës
(Aparte)
'He is a stylish, cultured performer and is as fine an advocate for Fauré’s mélodies as any of the best. Recommended for those who love indulging in French song at its finest.'
Requiem
Roxane Chalard sop Mathieu Dubroca bar Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas org Ensemble Aedes; Les Siècles / Mathieu Romano
Aparté (6/19)
Conductor Mathieu Romano’s Ensemble Aedes joins Les Siècles for a performance of the Requiem that is little short of revelatory. Stark, austere, almost shockingly intense, it’s very much about grief rather than consolation, though the final release of tension into the calm of In paradisum is overwhelming.
‘Complete Music for Solo Piano’
Lucas Debargue pf
Sony Classical (4/24)
Lucas Debargue tackles Fauré’s complete piano music in a groundbreaking survey, presented in chronological order and superbly played. It’s ideal for anyone wishing to trace and explore Fauré’s stylistic development from late Romantic to the threshold of modernism.
Dolly Suite
Paul Lewis, Steven Osborne (Hyperion)
'They begin with Dolly and manage, despite its popularity, to make it sound the freshest thing in the world, bringing across its innate charm and playfulness without any hint of the saccharine.'
Pénélope
Jessye Norman sop Alain Vanzo ten Jocelyne Taillon mez Colette Alliot-Lugaz, Christine Barbaux, Danièle Borst, Michèle Command, Norma Lerer sops Jean Dupouy ten Paul Guigue bar et al; Jean Laforgue Voc Ens; Monte Carlo PO / Charles Dutoit
Warner (10/81)
Jessye Norman is on majestic form as Pénélope in the only readily available recording of Fauré’s opera, with the Monte Carlo PO sounding sumptuous for Charles Dutoit. Look out on YouTube, though, for Anna Caterina Antonacci in a leaner, altogether more troubling interpretation, filmed live in Strasbourg in 2015.
‘The Secret Fauré: Orchestral Songs and Suites’
Olga Peretyatko sop Benjamin Bruns ten Balthasar Neumann Choir; Basel Symphony Orchestra / Ivor Bolton
Sony Classical (12/18)
In the first of a series juxtaposing familiar Fauré with little-known works, Ivor Bolton and the Basel SO explore his incidental music, placing the Pelléas et Mélisande suite (to which Mélisande’s song has been added in Koechlin’s orchestration) alongside Caligula and Shylock, both rarely heard and inexplicably neglected.
