Jessica, I was more or less reporting what Paul Ro...

2005-04-15T12:40:00.000+01:00

Jessica, I was more or less reporting what Paul Robertson said in the Radio 3 interview, and probably should have made it clearer that I was reporting his views. The Swansongs web site (http://www.swansongs.org.uk/) seems to confirm that this is his view as in the Swansongs programming the following is listed.
"Wandering in dementia - Gabriel Faure (1854-1924) "String Quartet" Medici Quartet"
In the interview Paul Robertson said that Faure's friend Vincent d'Indy had apologised for the quartet.
As above the dementia theory is Paul Robertson's. There is some supporting evidence, Faure was eighty when he wrote it, and he wrote during its composition "I can scarcely manage to write a few lines," while Jean Chantavoine in Le Menestrel wrote of the work as "the meditation..of a pure mind."
But I think I should acknowledge that others (including you) are more expert than me in these areas. I've drawn your very valuable and considered comment to Paul Robertson's attention. Let's hope he may explain his theory better than me!

I'm very curious about your comment re the Fauré s...

2005-04-15T09:21:00.000+01:00

I'm very curious about your comment re the Fauré string quartet. Early stages of dementia? First I've ever heard about it. What evidence has been presented for this? I'd like to know!

This piece is Fauré's last composition; he died just a few months after completing it, not from dementia but from lung problems (no doubt connected with smoking too much). He had been deaf, however, for many years; musicologists argue to this day over how far his deafness affected his music.

As for shapelessness: yes, the Fauré quartet can sound shapeless, but I believe this is because it is generally misunderstood by its performers. Having heard one performance by the Fitzwilliam Quartet which made the work spring to life as never before, I have a suspicion that because so many musicians think of Fauré as a composer who exists in a smooth, rarified, otherworldly atmosphere, especially in his "difficult" late works, they iron out all the dynamism, excitement, freshness and - yes - shape in those works. The quartet suffers more than any other. Play it with rhythmic strength, bring out its contrasts, enjoy its sensuality and you might be in for a surprise. Fauré's friends were constantly astonished by the youthful freshness of his late compositions and they deserve performances which do justice to that freshness!

Comments on On An Overgrown Path: Music and Alzheimer's

Jessica, I was more or less reporting what Paul Ro...

I'm very curious about your comment re the Fauré s...