Dolly (Fauré)

It consists of six short pieces written or revised between 1893 and 1896, to mark the birthdays and other events in the life of the daughter of the composer's mistress, Emma Bardac.

In 1893 Fauré made some small amendments and changed its title from "La Chanson dans le jardin" to "Berceuse" – that is, a cradle song.

[5] The title does not refer to a pet cat, as has often been supposed,[5] but to Dolly's attempts to pronounce the name of her elder brother Raoul, who later became one of Fauré's favourite pupils.

[8] The Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux considers this "perhaps the jewel of the suite, with its lovely tune, moving harmonies and limpid, subtle counterpoint.

[3] Like "Le Jardin de Dolly", this piece is lyrical, but is in a more modern style, making use of chromaticism of the kind Fauré later deployed in his Nocturnes.

The suite ends with a Spanish dance, a lively and picturesque piece of scene-painting, in the style of España by Fauré's friend Emmanuel Chabrier.

The photograph opposite shows the composer playing the secondo part to the primo of the young Mlle Lombard, daughter of his host and hostess at Trevano, Lake Lugano, in 1913.

This version received its first public performance conducted by Léon Jehin in Monte Carlo in December, 1906,[5] and was later used to accompany "an ingenious ballet" with a story by Louis Laloy at the Théâtre des Arts in Paris.

[12] Recordings of the suite in its original form for piano duet include those by Geneviève Joy and Jacqueline Bonneau (1955),[13] Robert and Gaby Casadesus (1962),[14] Kathryn Stott and Martin Roscoe (1995),[15] Pierre-Alain Volondat and Patrick Hooge (2000),[16] as well as Pascal and Ami Rogé.