Barcarolle No 4 in A flat major Op 44

Barcarolle No 6 in E flat major Op 70

Like Chopin’s great Barcarolle in F sharp major, all thirteen of Fauré’s Barcarolles adopt the swaying compound metre of the traditional Venetian gondola song. While few of them are anywhere near as ambitious in stature or structural complexity as Chopin’s solitary example, most of the earlier ones share several of the external characteristics of that work. Barcarolle No. 4 in A flat, which was written a year after the Fourth Nocturne, opens with a characteristic rolling left-hand accompaniment figure over which the right hand floats a melodic line that both contradicts and complies with the prevailing metre. Splashing water imagery is also much in evidence here, particularly in the middle section where an expressive new melody is introduced by the left hand under a swirling harmonic commentary in the right. In the closing bars only the watery background remains to be heard.

Barcarolle No.6 in E flat major, which was written as long as ten years later than No.4, is similar in shape to the earlier work but, in its quicker tempo and its exuberant main theme, very different in mood. It too has a contrasting middle section, the intimately expressive melody carried in the right hand this time, and a distantly rippling ending.