Fauré: Complete Music for Solo Piano

by Lucas Debargue

Overview

Gabriel Fauré wrote a lot of piano music, and complete recordings of it are rare, with just a few in the decades before the release of this one by pianist Lucas Debargue in 2024. That may have drawn listeners; the album landed on classical best-seller charts in the spring of that year. Another draw was Debargue's unusual piano, a modern instrument called the "Opus 102" by Stephen Paulello. As the name suggests, it has 102 keys. That doesn't affect Fauré, who wrote for the usual 88, but the piano also has certain details of construction that allow an unusually wide range of tone colors. Debargue contributes pages and pages of notes, including descriptions of each individual piece included on the four volumes of Fauré, but he doesn't really offer a coherent argument for why this piano was correct. So listeners can form their own judgments. This was a pandemic-era project, and perhaps Debargue felt that the new piano enabled him to enter more deeply into Fauré's music than would otherwise have been possible. In any event, he does well at creating an overarching direction in the music as a whole, playing Fauré's pieces in chronological order by opus number. He gives a sense of the development of the composer's pianistic language, which continued to explore Chopin's genres (principally the Barcarolle and the Nocturne) but took on deeper layers harmonically and texturally later in his life. The listener sympathetic to Debargue's approach will have the feeling of entering a murky, mysterious, almost spiritual or sepulchral world in the later parts of the program. Sony Classical and producer Hans Kipfer back Debargue up with excellent studio sound that captures all the tone colors. Many pieces sound unlike earlier recordings of Fauré, and listeners owe it to themselves to at least check the recording out. ~ James Manheim

Product Details

Release Date:	03/22/2024
Label:	Sony Classical
UPC:	0196588498824
Rank:	39537

Tracks

Disc 1

1. 3 Romances sans paroles Op. 17~No. 1 in A-flat major
2. 3 Romances sans paroles Op. 17~No. 2 in A minor
3. 3 Romances sans paroles Op. 17~No. 3 in A-flat major
4. Ballade in F-sharp major Op. 19
5. Impromptu No. 1 in E-flat major Op. 25
6. Barcarolle No. 1 in A minor Op. 26
7. Valse-Caprice No. 1 in A major Op. 30
8. Impromptu No. 2 in F minor / F major Op. 31
9. Mazurka in B-flat major Op. 32
10. 3 Nocturnes Op. 33~No. 1 in E-flat minor
11. 3 Nocturnes Op. 33~No. 2 in B major
12. 3 Nocturnes Op. 33~No. 3 in A-flat major

Disc 2

13. Impromptu No. 3 in A-flat major Op. 34
14. Nocturne No. 4 in E-flat major Op. 36
15. Nocturne No. 5 in B-flat major Op. 37
16. Valse-Caprice No. 2 in D-flat major Op. 38
17. Barcarolle No. 2 in G major Op. 41
18. Barcarolle No. 3 in G-flat major Op. 42
19. Barcarolle No. 4 in A-flat major Op. 44
20. Valse-Caprice No. 3 in G-flat major Op. 59
21. Valse-Caprice No. 4 in A-flat major Op. 62
22. Nocturne No. 6 in D-flat major Op. 63

Disc 3

23. Barcarolle No. 5 in F-sharp minor Op. 66
24. Barcarolle No. 6 in E-flat major Op. 70
25. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~[Thème.] Quasi adagio
26. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 1. Lo stesso tempo
27. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 2. Più mosso
28. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 3. Un poco più mosso
29. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 4. Lo stesso tempo
30. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 5. Un poco più mosso
31. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 6. Molto adagio
32. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 7. Allegretto moderato
33. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 8. Andante molto moderato
34. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 9. Quasi adagio
35. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 10. Allegro vivo
36. Thème et variations in C-sharp minor Op. 73~Var. 11. Andante molto moderato espressivo
37. Nocturne No. 7 in C-sharp minor Op. 74
38. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 1: Capriccio
39. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 2: Fantaisie
40. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 3: Fugue in A minor
41. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 4: Adagietto
42. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 5: Improvisation
43. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 6: Fugue in E minor
44. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 7: Allégresse
45. 8 Pièces brèves Op. 84~No. 8: Nocturne
46. Barcarolle No. 7 in D minor Op. 90
47. Impromptu No. 4 in D-flat major Op. 91
48. Barcarolle No. 8 in D-flat Major Op. 96
49. Nocturne No. 9 in B minor Op. 97

Disc 4

50. Nocturne No. 10 in E minor Op. 99
51. Barcarolle No. 9 in A minor Op. 101
52. Impromptu No. 5 in F-sharp minor Op. 102
53. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 1 in D-flat major
54. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 2 in C-sharp minor
55. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 3 in G minor
56. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 4 in F major
57. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 5 in D minor
58. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 6 in E-flat minor
59. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 7 in A major
60. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 8 in C minor
61. 9 Préludes Op. 103~No. 9 in E minor
62. 2 Pièces Op. 104 No. 1: Nocturne No. 11 in F-sharp minor
63. 2 Pièces Op. 104 No. 2: Barcarolle No. 10 in A minor
64. Barcarolle No. 11 in G minor Op. 105
65. Barcarolle No. 12 in E-flat major Op. 106
66. Nocturne No. 12 in E minor Op. 107
67. Barcarolle No. 13 in C major Op. 116
68. Nocturne No. 13 in B minor Op. 119

Album Credits

Performance Credits

Lucas Debargue   Primary Artist,Piano

Technical Credits

Paul Nadar   Photography
Hans Kipfer   Producer,Mastering Engineer,Recording Producer
Claire Paulello   Photography
Lucas Debargue   Liner Notes
Dovile Sermokas   Photography
Manuel Gouthiere   Photography
Gabriel Faure   Composer
Anja Hoppe   Design