FAURÉ Gabriel, Nocturne No.13
Gabriel Fauré composed thirteen nocturnes for piano between 1875 and 1921. The last of them, No.13 in B minor, Op.119, was completed on 31 December 1921, two weeks after the death of his friend Saint-Saëns. This event may have influenced the noble and introspective mood of the work, much of which seems to inhabit a world of private meditation, though it rises to a climax of great intensity before a return of the opening material. This substantial work moves through passion, anger, consolation, and grief, finally reaching what the British musicologist Robert Orledge described as ‘a visionary coda’ which gradually sinks into silence.
Nigel Simeone