Gabriel FAURÉ (1845-1924)
Autograph manuscript signed, Souvenirs, [1922]; 9 pages in-4.Memories of his training and studies at the Niedermeyer School. The article appeared in La Revue Musicale of October 1, 1922. The manuscript, written in black ink on the front of pages 1 to 9, presents numerous and important erasures and corrections.
Fauré says how much he owes, after Camille Saint-Saëns, to the Niedermeyer School. He evokes the foundation of the school by Louis NIEDERMEYER, author of the famous melody Le Lac, which brought " a deep modification of what was in France, around 1835, the representative genre of the pieces that one sang with piano or guitar accompaniment ". This was already evident in Gounod's work and influenced "many of the vocal pieces written in France over the last sixty years". He traces the life and career of Niedermeyer, and the importance of religious music in his work. Noting that in the churches, before the compositions of Franck and Gounod, bad music was "the general rule towards the middle of the last century", he had the idea of opening "a school, where from all points of France could come to learn and train future organists, future Chapel Masters, future teachers" Thus was founded in 1853 the School of religious and classical music. The boarding school system encouraged immersion in music.
"The instrumental teaching included only the study of the piano and the organ. Theoretical and practical instruction included harmony, counterpoint, composition, orchestration, and accompaniment, especially of plainchant. A singing course had been created, "whose exercises were strictly devoted to the performance of works by Palestrina, Vittoria, Orlando Lasso, etc...or by Bach and Handel"...He details the program of studies for the piano where Bach had a predominant place, although in 1853, he had "not yet entered the organ class of the Conservatoire". The pupils, however, remained mischievous schoolboys and showed some irreverence towards their supervisors and teachers, in particular towards Mr. Dietsch, professor of harmony, conductor of the Opéra: "on the occasion of the memorable performances of Thannaeuser, he had had a resounding disagreement with Wagner, the memory of which he never managed to dispel. [...] We brought him back, without much effort, to this painful chapter, assured that his indignation would awaken, that it would not subside and that the weakness of our work would go unnoticed. Which was not lacking! He also recalls a "copious" hullabaloo where the orchestra was composed of "four pianos, two violins, several pairs of tweezers, shovels, coal buckets, the lid of a cast-iron stove, and a wooden staircase of three steps [...] The effect exceeded our hopes!"...
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