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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2013
Comparison of the various printed and manuscript sources in the early songs of Gabriel Fauré reveals considerable discrepancies between the punctuation and formatting of the poems in their original published forms and the way in which they appear on the musical page. Numerous articles of punctuation are omitted, others appear in different form to their poetic originals and new symbols occasionally appear. Despite the many source variants and lacunae (notably the absence of engraving copy and proofs), together with the composer's occasionally haphazard notation, the disparities between musical and literary sources are often sufficiently numerous and consistent as to suggest deliberate compositional intervention. While critical editions of song and opera typically allow for compositional initiative with regard to changes to the words of poems, punctuation and formatting are generally (and often tacitly) amended to match literary, rather than musical sources. This study tests that standard editorial practice – one little discussed in the critical literature – against a more nuanced methodology, viewing the demands of a grammatically and semantically coherent text within a musical rather than an exclusively poetic context. It explores the symbiosis of musical and grammatical symbols, which Fauré often seems to have used almost interchangeably, and tests the implications for performers of Fauré's text-setting practices. In seeking a balance between fidelity to the poet and the composer, it also readdresses our editorial responsibility to the performer.
The author wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Roy Howat, principal editor of the forthcoming Peters critical edition of Fauré's songs; David Evans, who offered valuable suggestions on poetic matters; and the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
1 Closing remarks, French Music: Performance and Analysis, conference held at Brigham Young University, Laie, Hawaii, 15–19 November 2007.
2 Jean-Michel Nectoux and Mimi Daitz, eds, Gabriel Fauré: Mélodies et duos, Paris: Hamelle-Leduc, 2010Google Scholar
3 A Fauré ‘Complete Works’ project is now in progress through Bärenreiter under the direction of Jean-Michel Nectoux; at the time of writing the publication of the songs is not imminent.
4 E.A. Lequien, Traité de ponctuation, seventh edition (Paris: Werdet et Lequien Fils, 1826): 1Google Scholar
5 Abbé Amand-Louis-Amélie Girault, Traité de ponctuation, second edition (Paris: Philippart, 1849)Google Scholar
6 Email communication, David Evans to the author, 11 September 2011.
7 Ibid.
8 Post-1870 editions of Gautier's Poésies complètes insert a comma in line 1: ‘Dans un baiser, l'onde au rivage’; this appears in none of the musical sources for Fauré's song.
9 Email communication, Denis Herlin to the author, 31 October 2011. A slightly more flexible policy is employed in the Œuvres complètes de Claude Debussy edition of the vocal score of Pelléas et Mélisande (2010): here David Grayson does make some distinctions between what appear to be deliberate amendments to the punctuation of Maeterlinck's text, and slips or omissions by composer or engraver. His methodology is generally left to the reader to infer, however, as the number and complexity of musical sources leave little space to explain a detailed rationale for the treatment of text. Grayson explored textual issues and editorial methodology in Pelléas in a paper given at the symposium Debussy: Text and Ideas, Gresham College, London, 12–13 April 2012.
10 Schumann, Dichterliebe, ed. Kazuko Ozawa (Munich: Henle, 2005): 56Google Scholar
11 Arnold Schoenberg, Sämtliche werke 1/i, ed. Josef Rufer (1966), critical commentary by Christian Martin Schmidt (1989) (Mainz: Schott, 1989): 224 and passim.
12 Gautier, poètiques complètes, ed. Michel Brix (Paris: Bartillat, 2004)Google Scholar
Sully Prudhomme's ‘Ici-bas’ first appeared in the 1865 collection Stances et poèmes (Paris: Achille Faure)Google Scholar
13 Nectoux and Daitz, eds, Gabriel Fauré: Mélodies et duos, 160Google Scholar
14 Grier, The Critical Editing of Music: History, Method and Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996)Google Scholar
15 Howat, The Art of French Piano Music (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009): 231Google Scholar
16 Letters of 6 and 8 December 1919, in Gabriel Fauré: Lettres intimes, ed. Philippe Fauré-Fremiet (Paris: Grasset, 1951): 260. The poetess was indeed unimpressed.
17 François Le Roux, conversation with the author, Paris, 21 January 2011.
18 Nectoux, Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life, trans. Roger Nichols (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990)Google Scholar
19 Fauré's song inverts Gautier's title ‘Lamento (Chanson du pêcheur)’.
20 Nectoux (ed.), Gabriel Fauré: His Life Through His Letters, trans. J.A. Underwood (London: Marion Boyars, 1984): 18Google Scholar
21 Nectoux (ed.), Fauré: His Life Through his Letters, 82Google Scholar
22 Dürrenmatt, Jacques, ‘Virgules et blancs: une question d'importance?’, in Victor Hugo et la langue: Actes du colloque de Cerisy, 2–12 août 2002’, ed. Florence Naugrette and Guy Rosa (Paris: Éditions Bréal, Université Paris-Didérot, 2005): 2Google Scholar
23 The same concern might conversely lead us to omit the extra comma musical sources add to the first line of ‘Dans les ruines d'une abbaye’ (‘Seuls, tous deux, ravis, chantants…’; see above). We may also be influenced here by the reprise of the opening bars (bars 35–50), where the medium-voice collection and separate edition include the comma after Seuls; other musical sources omit it.
24 Fauré replaces s'en with donc.
25 Fauré also replaces a full stop with an exclamation mark at the climax of ‘Les berceaux’ (Op. 23 No. 1, bar 20): ‘Tentent les horizons qui leurent!’ The first syllable of leurent! is the highest note in the song, followed by an octave descent to the second syllable, so the exclamation mark serves to reinforce the fsempre indication; cf. also discussion of ‘Chant d'automne’.
26 Another song in which two or more different editions of a poem were involved is Fauré's 1880 setting of Leconte de Lisle's ‘Nell’ (Op. 18 No. 1): comparison of the 1880 separate editions with the 1897 collected edition (both published by Hamelle) strongly suggests that the 1858 edition of Poémes antiques was the principal source for the former while the 1881 re-edition was consulted for the latter (though whether by Fauré or an in-house editor is impossible to say).
27 While consistent in their patterns of capitalization, the musical sources again vary in their presentation of the punctuation. All replace Hugo's first full stop (after mariés) with a comma, and the initial Choudens separate edition and Hamelle high-voice collection (the latter derived directly from the former) omit any punctuation after joie (other musical sources have an exclamation mark) and the commas around amour.
28 While Fauré's source for the poem was probably the 1868 (posthumous) edition of Les fleurs du mal, the only discrepancy between this version and the 1861 edition is that the line ‘Qu'on cloue en grand hâte un cercueil quelque part.’ has an ellipsis appended in the 1868 edition; this appears in none of the musical sources.
29 Roy Howat explores this characteristic in detail in Chapter 18 (‘A fresh look at Gabriel Fauré’) of The Art of French Piano Music, 263–78; cf. in particular 275–8.
30 Howat, Roy and Kilpatrick, Emily, ‘Editorial challenges in the early songs of Gabriel Fauré’, Notes 68/2 (December 2011): 239–283Google Scholar