| This study of Gabriel Faure and his circle reconstructs the meanings of aesthetic categories crucial to the creation and reception of music in France between 1885 and 1925. Recent studies of Faure have established the facts of his life and works, but broader aesthetic and historical issues that would help explain his overall achievement have received less attention. The interrelated chapters of this study treat the topics of sincerity, originality, novelty, self-renewal, homogeneity and religious belief in relation to Faure's music and thought. Probing these categories leads to a historical understanding of Faure's aesthetics. During Faure's lifetime, ideas like "sincerity" and "originality" bore meanings lost or muddled in later historical currents. Retrieving these meanings enables us to examine Faure's conception of his own creative work as well as to interpret nuances in the opinions expressed by other composers and critics.;Faure's music and letters form the primary materials of this study, which builds on the pioneering work of Jean-Michel Nectoux. Vital secondary material is provided by musicians and critics contemporary to Faure, including Saint-Saens, Dukas, Debussy, d'Indy, Ravel, Koechlin, Vuillermoz, and Pierre Lalo. The analysis of literary and speculative writings by Valery, Proust, Dromard, and Bergson also helps uncover the stakes in aesthetic categories shared by many French artists. Several chapters deliberately move beyond the historical range of Faure's lifetime to consider changes in the significance of "sincerity," "novelty," and "originality" in the later twentieth century; witnesses as different as Nadia Boulanger, Pierre Boulez, and Stanley Cavell are called to account. Throughout this study, beliefs and aesthetic ideas are connected to concrete artistic choices. The movement from broad ideas to particular pieces permits new analytical insights into Faure's music, including the Requiem, Second Quartet, First Quintet, La bonne chanson, La chanson d'Eve, and L'horizon chimerique. |
