Après un Reve

The name of this song is Après un Reve. It is composed by Gabriel Faure. My

vocal teacher has me singing this song because it is a classic French piece with much
meaning, and it has a certain level of difficultly that is right for me, despite the fact that I
never performed it as well as I practiced it.
Gabriel Faure was born May 12th, 1845 in southern French town of Pamiers. He
was the youngest of 6 children born to Toussaint and Marie Fauré. His musical talent was
discovered at a young age on a church piano. So at age nine, he was sent to Niedermeyer
School of religious music in Paris. He stayed there for eleven years and competed in
piano competitions winning first prize two years in a row, and was denied entry a third
year because he was to talented. His teacher Niedermeyer knew he was very talented and
treated him different form other students, he was a father to Faure who had been
separated from his family for many years. Then when Gabriel’s teacher died in 1861
Gabriel got a new teach just 10 years older than himself, Camille Saint-Saëns. Thus a
beautiful lifelong friendship between the two was created. Then in 1865 at 20 Faure left
school to become an organist in a very boring town, and then dear friend Camille found
him a place in Paris. Unfortunately the Franco-Prussian War broke out and Fauré was
enlisted into the First Regiment of the Imperial Light Infantry as a messenger. After the
war he worked at another church as an organist composing romantic music, later his
songs focused on the words and the meaning of each song. Faure had many friends, these
friends helped him get his music published and pushed him into stardom 20 years later.
He got married in the meantime only to discover his new wife was a drag. He remained
married and they had two children. After serving as a choirmaster for 19 years he became
the organist at the Madeleine in 1896. In the same year he also became Professor of
Composition at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1900 at the premiere of Promethée, Fauré met
and fell in love with Marguerite Hasselmans, despite the fact that he was as old as her
father they stayed together till the end of his life. Gabriel never divorced his original
wife, the morals of the time did not allow him to, people considered it a second marriage.
Then in 1902 Faure began to notice hearing problems, every note hurt his ears.
Eventually he was not able to test out his works on a piano. Then in 1920 he retired. He
died in 1924 at the age of 79. He was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher.
During this time period, Romantic music was prominent. Society shifted to new
technologies looking to the “new world” for new ideas. War hit France on many different
occasions changing the way people thought about human life.
This song is addressed to an image of a lover in a dream. The gender is not
specific, but the original score is written for the female voice. The theme is love, the text
describes a dream in which the vocalist and their beloved come together, during the song
the vocalist awakes, wanting to get back to that dream state of there beloved. The purpose
of this piece is to display a dreamer imagining the love of their life, and to get that love
across to the audience. The meaning is that dreams are good for sometime but eventually
you have to wake and face reality.
There are definitely different moods in this piece. The biggest point of drama is
when the narrator say “Alas” this is when the narrator is waking up from the dream that
made them happy. This is definitely the Climax of the song, because from here on out all
the singer wants to do is return to that dream state and be there with the one they love
forever. In this piece, the accompaniment is light but adds a pulse to the song, making the
piece more intense. Providing an atmosphere for the performer.
This piece is a romantic era piece in a form that am not familiar with. It cannot be
in ABA form because it does not go back to the A section at the end of the piece. When I
learned this piece I went in this order, solfege, rhythm, words. Some experiences in my
life that relate to this are experiences we all have. Everyone dreams at night about a better
life and when they awake wish they could just fall back to sleep into those dreams. I
know I always dream about doing my best on a performance or a test and then when I get
up there to do it I usually do not succeed. Unless I become an entirely different person
like in theatre. If I ever sing this song again I will use emotions that are dreamy and
portray more sadness as well. To sell this piece to the Audience if I sing this again I will
need to dig into the emotions and let go of fear.
I like this piece a lot. But when a person has two horrible performances in a row
when they worked so hard on it, it is hard to like the song. I like it because I love the
timing the triple lets and everything. I hate it because I didn’t perform it to even half of
what I know I am capable of and I dislike French very much, I always make it Spanish or
German like. If I ever perform this again I want my audience to know that I have worked
really hard to get this piece to where it needs to be unlike the last time. And I want them
to feel the song for all its interest and beauty. I learned from this piece that I cannot sing
French Music, but I also learned that Faure was very talented and that not all pieces have
to be in ABA form. And from this piece I also learned that I sing off pitch, I don’t have
the right voice for this music, I have bad breath control, and I basically ruined this song
two times in a row. This piece mad me realize that once I am out of Larkin I should never
let my voice be heard singing this kind of music ever again.