Nocturne No.12 in E minor, Op.107

In 1915 France was at war - a fairly elementary historical observation, it is true, but one offered here as a possible explanation of the strangely turbulent quality of Fauré’s Twelfth Nocturne in E minor. It has few parallels anywhere in his music and it is difficult to imagine otherwise how a Fauré nocturne came to be as riven by contradictions as any Brahms rhapsody. The fact that the only other piano piece he completed in the war years was the comparatively serene Twelfth Barcarolle in E flat major, Op.106, does not invalidate the speculation. The Nocturne is the more spontaneous inspiration while the Barcarolle is probably the result of a professional concern that two works written for the same instrument and for publication at the same time should not be too much alike.

One of the basic contradictions of the Nocturne in E minor is evident, though not at this point very forcibly expressed, in the Andante moderato opening bars, where the syncopated melodic line in the right hand consistently defies the rhythmic implications of the 12/8 figuration that goes with it. Another is the persistent controversy between major and minor harmonies. The second theme in A minor quietly but disconcertingly projects its melodic line off the beat and at bitterly dissonant intervals with the flow of semiquavers underneath it. Having re-examined both aspects of his material, Fauré provokes a crisis with a change of tempo to Allegro ma non troppo in an agitated, ever accelerating effort to reconcile not only the two main themes but also the underlying contradictions. The quietly resigned E minor ending seems to suggest that no reconciliation is to be found.