Automne (Trois mélodies) Op.18 No.3

{1878, published 1880} Text: Armand Silvestre (1837-1901 ) /Music: Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – à Mademoiselle Alice Boissonnet.

Marilyn Mccabe's image of Armand Sylvestre & Gabriel Fauré

Marilyn McCabe’s image of Armand Sylvestre & Gabriel Fauré

Paul-Armand Silvestre (April 18, 1837 – February 19, 1901) was a Parisian born poet, journalist, art critic and was awarded the Legion of Honour in 1886. A civil servant, not regarded as one of the great French poets, nonetheless attracted a lot of composers to his work, as they “left tactful scope for musical elaboration” – Johnson, Graham & Stokes, Richard: “A French Song Companion”, Oxford University Press, New York, 2000, P.164

As so often with Fauré, the song plunges straight into the scene without any introduction. Depending on which key the song is performed in, the fingers have to be placed carefully between the black notes, a split second before the pianist begins, so as not to hit any wrong notes. That split-second “placing” of the hand and the immediate undulations of the right hand triplet figure, gives this opening a sense of deliberate and inevitable intent. While calling on severe pianist control in the quiet range, it also calls on the utmost sensual expressive power of the pianist. The composer’s admonition to the pianist in bar 3, “sempre legato – always smooth and connected” stresses that he didn’t want the accompanist to forget for a moment that it has to caress every note, and like a skilled and attentive lover, not to lose physical contact with the object of their affection even for a moment. The dark and heavy octaves continue this feeling sensuality as the pianist strikes the notes on offbeats – a haunting bell of memory. The falling chromatic line drives the drama of the work as much as it encourages a sensual stroking of the keys as the fingers crawl from white note to black note and down again to white note.

Automne opening

The composer had recently made pilgrimage to Cologne to attend performances of Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Die Walküre and it is easy to reference the German master’s chromatic tension. However, the unmistakeable watery shimmer of Duparc’s L’invitation au Voyage is clearly present. The seasons are used as an allegory for the passing of time and the ravages it leaves on a broken heart. The simple, direct and clear structure of the song translates into a building of passion and expression that appears as natural as it is inevitable.

Automne Op.18 No.3 – Analysis

A1 Section
1) Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves
2) Curve Shaped Phrase – “Automne au ciel brumeux, aux horizons navrants” – a phrase following a natural curve upwards and down again.
3) Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves
4) Curve Shaped Phrase – “Aux rapides couchants, aux aurores pâlies” – a repeat of the first curve

B Section
5) Foreshortened Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves – The tension is immediately heightened because the Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves are not allowed to finish a full cycle, before the voice enters again
6) “Je regarde couler, comme l’eau du torrent, Tes jours faits de mélancolie” – Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves and Voice duet in a passage that has the potential to build to a climax, but comes down to a quiet passage in the Dominant Major, signalling a new departure is about to occur.

C Section
7) The piano right hand melody suggests the mind flying off on “wings of regret”
8) “Sur l’aile des regrets mes esprits emportés, -Comme s’il se pouvait que notre âge renaisse!- Parcourent, en rêvant, les coteaux enchantés, “- With each line, the pitch grows higher, but falls again: building tension and allowing it to subside before:
9) “Où jadis sourit ma jeunesse!” – the highest note in the song so far coincides with the expression of highest regret

A2 Section, recapilutation of the opening material
10) Curve Shaped Phrase – “Je sens, au clair soleil du souvenir vainqueur,”
11) Foreshortened Piano Undulations and Bass Octaves
12) Curve Shaped Phrase – “Refleurir en bouquet les roses deliées,”
13) Climax Phrase – “Et monter à mes yeux des larmes, qu’en mon coeur, Mes vingt ans avaient oubliées!” – No curve-shaped phrase in the piano this time, just a steady climb to the apex of the piece, both the highest note and the highest dramatic point in the song.

D Section
14) Piano Coda – Very dramatic percussive leaps in the Right Hand, based on the melodic and rhythmic curve of the opening Octave sections, pulls the volume and drama back down to a dark, dramatic, but resigned center of the tonality.

The song’s themes of sorrow and regret, as well as the uncharacteristically uninhibited display of emotion from this composer – the epitome of French charm, grace and restraint – might lead one to read into it elements of Fauré’s personal life. His engagement to Marianne Viardot had recently been broken off, and according to his biographers, the shadow of this heart-break never quite left him.

The Eiffel Tower was constructed for the Great Paris Exhibition in 1878 , the year of this song's composition. It was a time of professional excitement for the composer as he was achieving success and received his first big publishing contract.

The Eiffel Tower was constructed for the Great Paris Exhibition in 1878 , the year of this song’s composition. It was a time of professional excitement for the composer as he was achieving success and received his first big publishing contract.

The song is dedicated to Alice Boissonnet.

Marie Jenny Henriette Alice Boissonnet de La Touche  (1857-1932) was a well-known Paris singer and musician at the turn of the last century, and was associated with Duparc, Gounod and Fauré, among others. (A cousin, Pierre de Lassus, married Gounod’s daughter Jeanne.)

Automne Op.18 No.3 – {1878, published 1880} Text: Armand Silvestre (1837-1901 ) /Music: Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – French Lyrics

Automne au ciel brumeux, aux horizons navrants.
Aux rapides couchants, aux aurores pâlies,
Je regarde couler, comme l’eau du torrent,

Tes jours faits de mélancolie. Sur l’aile des regrets mes esprits emportés,
-Comme s’il se pouvait que notre âge renaisse!
– Parcourent, en rêvant, les coteaux enchantés, Où jadis sourit ma jeunesse!

Je sens, au clair soleil du souvenir vainqueur,
Refleurir en bouquet les roses deliées,
Et monter à mes yeux des larmes, qu’en mon coeur,
Mes vingt ans avaient oubliées!

Automne Op.18 No.3 – {1878, published 1880} Text: Armand Silvestre (1837-1901 ) /Music: Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) – English Lyrics

Autumn, time of misty skies and heart-breaking horizons,
of rapid sunsets and pale dawns,
I watch your melancholy days flow past like a torrent.

My thoughts borne off on the wings of regret (as if our time could ever be relived!)
Dreamingly wander the enchanted slopes where my youth once used to smile.

In the bright sunlight of triumphant memory
I feel the scattered roses reblooming in bouquets;
and tears well up in my eyes, tears which my heart
at twenty had already forgotten!

Autumn in Berlin Photo by Albert Combrink

While this picture is of Autumn and conjures up the rich colours one associates with the song’s title, this photograph suggests something far more robust and healthy than what I hear in the music.

An Autumn closer to Winter than Summer, with the leaves already beginning to rot. From the opening rustle and ominous crawling octaves to the final resigned, despondent climax, there is in this song, no hope for a bright summer after the coming winter, and it crawls to rest on a spent, exhausted minor chord.

An Autumn closer to Winter than Summer, with the leaves already beginning to rot. From the opening rustle and ominous crawling octaves to the final resigned, despondent climax, there is in this song no hope for a bright summer after the coming winter, and it crawls to rest on a spent, exhausted minor chord.

Download FREE SHEET MUSIC of Gabriel Fauré’s “Automne” Op.18 No.3:

Sheet Music for Gabriel Fauré’s Automne Op.18 No.3 in G minor

Sheet Music for Gabriel Fauré’s Automne Op.18 No.3 in A Minor
Sheet Music for Gabriel Fauré’s Automne Op.18 No.3 in B Minor – ORIGINAL KEY
Sheet Music for Gabriel Fauré’s Automne Op.18 No.3 in C# Minor

Gabriel Fauré’s “Automne” Op.18 No.3 – Barbara Hendricks & Michel Dalberto (recorded 1989)

Gabriel Fauré’s “Automne” Op.18 No.3 – Sung by John McCormack in 1932 – a bit of a rarity!

Gabriel Fauré’s “Automne” Op.18 No.3 – Sung LIVE at the Verbier Festival in 2009 by Philippe Jaroussky and Jérôme Ducros

 

Cellist Sarah Acres comments "Faure L'Automne. There are so many versions of this song, some faster and more urgent in their phrasing, some slower and more introspective at the outset - giving rise to a more meaningful "architecture" overall as the music heads to it's inevitable climax. for me it is the Autumn of windswept days, scudding clouds, blowing leaves - heralding the onset of winter, both literally and as a part of the cycle of life. The opening bass theme of the piano part, recurrent throughout the song, has a certain dark and ominous feel to it, a sense of forboding lurking under the "beauty" of Autumn leaves. Decay is a necessary part of renewal. The painting is by Van Gogh, wonderfully bleak, cold and rather remote ...."

Cellist Sarah Acres comments “Faure L’Automne. There are so many versions of this song, some faster and more urgent in their phrasing, some slower and more introspective at the outset – giving rise to a more meaningful “architecture” overall as the music heads to it’s inevitable climax. For me it is the Autumn of windswept days, scudding clouds, blowing leaves – heralding the onset of winter, both literally and as a part of the cycle of life. The opening bass theme of the piano part, recurrent throughout the song, has a certain dark and ominous feel to it, a sense of foreboding lurking under the “beauty” of Autumn leaves. Decay is a necessary part of renewal. The painting is by Van Gogh, wonderfully bleak, cold and rather remote ….”

 

Visit Marilyn McCabe’s website HERE for more Sylvestre settings by Fauré.