Ex. 7-7: Dans les ruines d'une abbaye

One of Fauré's earliest songs, published as Op. 2 in 1866. The poem is by Victor Hugo, from his 1865 collection Les Chansons des rues et des bois (Songs of the Streets and the Woods). Hugo wrote these poems in political exile, on the island of Guernsey; he was 43 years older than Fauré.

A newlywed couple plays and laughs in the ruins of an old abbey. They pick jasmine from the stones where nuns once prayed, play hide-and-seek in the old cloister, and kiss under the pillars and arches. The final twist: "This is the story of birds in the trees."

Fauré set Hugo's poems only when he was young. Hugo's warm, Romantic poems fit his early music. Later, Fauré's own style grew quieter and more controlled, and Hugo's poems no longer fit it.

Fauré wrote the song around 1866, at about 21, soon after finishing at the École Niedermeyer, a Paris school for church musicians. He then became an organist in the provincial town of Rennes. He was a restless church employee — during the sermon, he would slip out to smoke a cigarette. In 1870 he was asked to resign, after he turned up to play Mass still in his evening clothes, following a whole night out at a ball.

At that school, Fauré's teacher had been the composer Camille Saint-Saëns, about ten years older than him. Saint-Saëns showed him the newest music of the day — Schumann, Liszt, Wagner — which the strict course did not cover. The two became friends for life.

From the album Bijoux by Eva Lind and Jean Lemaire (2014)
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