Three Versions of Classic: The Construction of Gabriel Fauré in the 1920s

Abstract

Drawing on recent scholarship (Kelly, Pasler, Wheeldon, Fauser) examining the discursive construction of the reputations of well-known Belle-Époque musicians, this article investigates the case of Gabriel Fauré and the ways in which his posthumous legacy was shaped throughout the 1920s in France. Drawing on wide-ranging journalistic and biographical sources, the article argues that the figure of Fauré was increasingly constructed around the concept of the ‘classic’ in the years immediately following his death in 1924. I suggest that the types of ‘classicism’ associated with Fauré in this context were, however, multivalent and largely contingent on the cultural and aesthetic mandates of those ‘reputational entrepreneurs’ that sought to advocate in favour of his posthumous legacy. This article thus examines the notion of Fauré ‘the classic’ as it was discursively constructed in three specific instances: by the French Republic in its State funeral for the composer; by the young post-war generation of composers (especially Georges Auric of the group Les Six), and by the composer, former student, and biographer of Fauré, Charles Koechlin. These cases reveal that Fauré's classicism was articulated in contrasting ways, ranging from a heroic classicism associated with the celebration of national ‘great men’, an aesthetic classicism linked to French musical traditions, or, finally, a classicism derived from the aesthetics and culture of Ancient Greece.