3 Songs

The Three Songs, Op. 7, were composed at various times between 1870 and 1877 and published as a set in 1878: only subsequently were they given an opus number. The set begins with what has become Fauré’s best known song and indeed one of his best known compositions: “Après un rêve” (“After a Dream”) has been recorded not only by innumerable classical singers but by such artists as Barbra Streisand and Mireille Mathieu. It has also been widely arranged as an instrumental piece, or as a song or instrumental solo with orchestral accompaniment. Fauré sets an anonymous, originally Tuscan text in a French translation by the baritone and singing teacher Romain Bussine. The singer recounts awaking from a dream of mystical happiness with the beloved, a state he longs to recapture by returning once again to his mysterious, nocturnal reverie. The second song, “Hymne”, sets a text by the great—though in his day controversial—figure of Charles Baudelaire (1821-67), in which the singer extols the beloved as the fairest one, an angel, an immortal idol. Completing the set is Fauré’s setting of Marc Monnier’s poem “Barcarolle”, which retains throughout the rocking motion of a song sung by a Venetian gondolier, who rejoices in his work and the opportunity it gives him for love affairs.