Gabriel Fauré

As a child, Fauré spent hours playing the harmonium in a chapel near his school, where a blind old woman who often came to listen noticed his talent. At the age of nine, his father sent him to a Parisian music school, and after graduating, he soon became one of the city's leading organists. In 1896, he succeeded Massenet as a professor of composition at the Conservatoire, and from 1905 to 1920, he served as the institution's director; his students there included Maurice Ravel. Although Fauré's own music was slow to gain recognition, he is now widely regarded as one of the greatest French masters. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he particularly devoted himself to smaller forms: songs, chamber music, and romantic pieces for his own instrument, the piano. Fauré developed a distinct, elegant, and elaborate personal style with shimmering harmonic shifts; his undeniable originality lies primarily in subtle details: In his music, there are none of the grand rhetorical gestures so typical of the era, yet within the self-imposed limits, it regularly soars to moments of ecstatic beauty. In his most significant songs, such as the cycle La Bonne Chanson, based on Verlaine's poetry collection of the same name, word and music merge with a degree of perfection unsurpassed by any other composer.