Gabriel Fauré - Pelleas et Melisande, Op. 80 (arr. C. Koechlin) - Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra

Pelléas et Mélisande, Op. 80 is a suite derived from incidental music by Gabriel Fauré for Maurice Maeterlinck's play of the same name. He was the first of four leading composers to write music inspired by Maeterlinck's drama. Debussy, Schoenberg and Sibelius followed in the first decade of the 20th century.

Fauré's music was written for the London production of Maeterlinck's play in 1898. To meet the tight deadline of the production, Fauré reused some earlier music from incomplete works and enlisted the help of his pupil Charles Koechlin, who orchestrated the music. Fauré later constructed a four-movement suite from the original theatre music, orchestrating the concert version himself.

There are two different versions of the original theatre score for Pelléas et Mélisande in existence. The first is Koechlin's autograph of the orchestral score, dating from May and June 1898, and incorporating several rough sketches by Fauré in short score. The second is the conducting score used by Fauré in London; this is also a manuscript in Koechlin's handwriting.

Fauré later reused the music for Mélisande's song in his song cycle La chanson d'Ève, adapting it to fit words by the Symbolist poet Charles van Lerberghe. The Sicilienne became very popular as an independent piece, with arrangements for flute and piano (by Henri Büsser among others), for cello and piano, as well as other instruments. Extracts from Pelléas et Mélisande were used by George Balanchine as the score for the Emeralds section of his 1967 ballet Jewels.

After Fauré, three other leading composers completed works inspired by Maeterlinck's drama: Debussy's opera (1902), Schoenberg's early tone poem (1903) and Sibelius's incidental music (1905).

After the run of the play in London, Fauré drew on the music for a short orchestral suite, which he orchestrated himself, using Koechlin's London score as a starting point. The original orchestration for the London production consisted of two flutes, one oboe, two clarinets, one bassoon, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, harp and string quartet. Fauré reorchestrated for larger forces, including a normal string complement and second oboe, second bassoon and third and fourth horns. He also rewrote several passages, notably the climaxes in the first, third and fourth movements.


I. Prelude - Andante molto moderato 00:04:17

II. Andante 00:00:59




III. Andante moderato 00:01:04




IV. Fileuse - Allegretto moderato 00:02:41




V. Sicilienne - Allegretto molto moderato 00:03:38




VI. Chanson de Melisande - Molto lento 00:04:03




VII. La Mort de Melisande - Andante molto, quasi adagio 00:04:42

This movement was played at Fauré's own funeral.


Painting - Arianna in Nasso, 1774
Artist - Angelica Kauffmann

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