FAURE Impromptu in D-flat major, Op. 86
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Curtis Institute of Music
GABRIEL FAURE Impromptu in D-flat major, Op. 86
Héloïse Carlean-Jones, harp
Performed on Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Field Concert Hall, Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)–one of the masters of the French?art?song?repertoire–saw great musical change during his lifetime. He was born into a world where Chopin?was?still?composing?and left that world having heard the emerging musical idioms of jazz and atonality. For that reason,?Fauré's music is often perceived as bridging the end of Romanticism with the dawn of?Modernism in music.?
In the summer of 1904, Fauré was commissioned to write a harp piece for a competition at the Paris Conservatoire:?the?Impromptu in D-flat major, Op. 86. A young and talented harpist named Micheline Kahn?won the competition, but much ambiguity surrounds the true authorship of the commissioned work.?Because of his commitments as?director?of the Paris Conservatoire and as an active?church organist, Fauré had little time for com