Nocturne No 4 in E flat major Op 36

Nocturne No 6 in D flat major Op 63

It takes no more than a glance at the most frequently recurring titles in the list of Fauré’s works - Nocturnes, Barcarolles, Impromptus, Préludes - to work out where, as a piano composer, he was coming from. Even if he hadn’t chosen to signal his allegiance in that way, the Chopin influence would still have beeen plain enough in his piano music until he was well into his thirties. As far as the Nocturnes are concerned, the first fully characteristic example is No.4 in E flat major, which was written when he was not far short of forty. The Chopin model, the elegant melodic line poised in the right hand over an arpeggio accompaniment in the left, is still there in the opening bars, it is true. But the tender shape of that melodic line, which anticipates the Dolly Suite by ten years or so, is entirely personal. As in most of Fauré’s thirteen Nocturnes, a turbulent middle section intrudes on the otherwise prevailing calm. In this case it is approached by way of an eerie episode evoking distant bells heard through rustling minor harmonies - another characteristic Fauré sound which is heard again, though now in major harmonies, shortly before the end of the piece.

    Asked where he found the inspiration for his wonderfully atmospheric Nocturne No.6 in D flat major, Fauré replied “In the Simplon Tunnel.” Since the piece was written eleven years before the Simplon Tunnel was open we can only assume that it was a silly answer to a question which, though not entirely silly, was entirely superfluous. While by no means all of Fauré’s thirteen Nocturnes are actually nocturnal in character, this one - written at the composer’s regular country retreat near Bougival in August 1894 - surely breathes the scented air and reflects the stars of a warm summer night. Longer than any of Chopin’s Nocturnes, it is no less spontaneous in its continuity and even more liberated in construction. Its three main themes in three different tempi - the serene Adagio at the beginning, the charming Allegretto molto moderato, the transfigured Allegro moderato in the middle - have no evident relationship with each other. Yet, by means of fragmentary thematic echoes between the sections and a passionate development that mingles the themes together and ends with an emphatic declaration of the Adagio material in heavy left-hand octaves, the unity of the piece is sealed even before the restoration of the opening tranquillity in the closing bars.