ABSTRACT
The years between 1911 and 1914 (for we must traverse this period in the composer’s life before we encounter him once again as a creator of mélodies) were hugely busy. The sheer excitement of creating a large work in which he passionately believed, the opera Pénélope, carried him forward in terms of body and spirit. Fauré’s health was not improving but no medical complaint, no difficulty with his hearing, could impede the progress of his great task. As he wrote to his son, ‘In truth, one really ought to have nothing else to do apart from that which one is destined for – when one is destined for something.’ The central misfortune of Fauré’s life – as well as the good fortune of Schubert’s, who managed precisely this, despite having even less money than the French composer – is encapsulated in this wistful sentence. Throughout his life Fauré had to snatch time to compose amid the hurly-burly of making a living. Not very much changed for him in this regard during the first decade of the twentieth century: his day-to-day work at the Conservatoire was demanding although less time-consuming and stressful than crossing from one end of Paris to the other to give lessons, or from one end of France to the other to inspect conservatoires. When circumstances permitted him to do so, he spent extended periods working on Pénélope, and these seemed positively idyllic.
