Shylock (Fauré)
The composer constructed the suite from incidental music he had written the previous year for Edmond Haraucourt's play Shylock, an adaptation of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, presented at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris.
In 1889 Fauré composed incidental music for a new play, Shylock, an adaptation by Edmond Haraucourt of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.
The piece was premiered at the Théâtre de l'Odéon in Paris on 17 December 1889 in a lavish production starring Gabrielle Réjane as Portia.
[2][n 1] In his biography of Fauré, Robert Orledge observes that little is known about the composition of the score other than that "the superlative Nocturne" was composed in October 1889 after a short stay with the Vicomtesse Greffulhe at her country house.
[3] There were nine numbers in the score composed for the Odéon, and from these Fauré extracted and arranged a six-movement suite for full orchestra – with solo tenor in two movements – adding two harps, timpani and triangle.
[3] It was first performed at a concert of the Société nationale de musique in Paris on 17 May 1890, by the singer Julien Leprestre and the society's orchestra, conducted by Jean Gabriel-Marie.
[6] The suite is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, timpani, triangle, harp and strings.
Come on, soft-spoken girls, it is time to forget pride and virtue and we will see the flower of forbidden kisses bloom in the mosses it is God who commands it.
Girls Beside love nothing is good on earth, and from the golden evenings to the rosy dawns the dead are jealous, in their solitary peace, of the murmur of kisses!
[6] Nectoux finds the orchestral versions preferable: "the piano writing sounds thin and inadequate compared to that in most of his other accompaniments".
[16] It was played in the theatre to accompany the action at Portia's house in Belmont, and is mostly pianissimo, intended as a background for spoken dialogue.
In Nectoux's view, Fauré's setting is less successful than in the first serenade, with melodic lines that droop and predictable harp entries in the accompaniment.
[n 2] Orledge describes this as the first of the truly inspired movements in the suite, with "unusually sonorous orchestration", rising to passionate heights and "almost Wagnerian in its opulence";[22] Nectoux suggests that it foreshadows the "calm lyricism" of Debussy's 1902 opera Pelléas et Mélisande.
Charles Koechlin wrote:The main theme haunted Fauré, and he returned to it in his Romance for Cello and Piano, Op.
[29][30] Orledge comments, "The astonishing brilliance, lightness and variety of the orchestration more than compensate for the two rather undistinguished themes, which both undergo exciting development in this sparkling perpetuum mobile".
[31] The company's orchestra, conducted by Robert Irving recorded the orchestral movements of Fauré's scores for a 1986 CD set.
WorldCat lists recordings of the Nocturne, conducted by John Barbirolli, Enrique Bátiz, Philippe Gaubert, Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Thomas Schippers.
