Cinq Mélodies de Venise op. 58

Fauré composed Mandoline in June 1891 during a delightful stay at the Venetian palazzo rented by Winnaretta Singer (later Princesse Edmond de Polignac). He completed his cycle to poems by Verlaine in Paris and Chatou, with two more poems from Les Fêtes galantes of 1869 (En sourdine and À Clymène) and two pieces from Romances sans paroles of 1874 (Green and C’est l’extase). He dedicated it to “Mme la Princesse Edmond de Polignac”, who hosted the first performance, given on 6 January 1892 by the tenor Maurice Bagès with Fauré at the piano. Bagès also gave the first public performance, on 2 April of that year, at the Société Nationale de Musique. Fauré aimed to make the five songs into “a sort of Suite, a story”, the backbone of which consists of a unifying motif that undergoes many subtle variations. He mentioned the strong coherence between En sourdine, Green and C’est l’extase. Also noteworthy is the alternation of fast and slow songs and the use of two kinds of piano texture: smooth arpeggios in nos. 2 and 4, and staccato in nos. 1, 3 and 5. While Mandoline evokes – with a touch of irony – a character from a painting by Watteau singing his serenade, the other songs let the poet give free rein to his feelings, nuanced by the moiré effects of the harmony and the motifs heard on the piano (heart-beat-like chords in Green, the gently rocking rhythms of a barcarolle in À Clymène, panting syncopations in C’est l’extase). In a letter to Marguerite Baugnies, Fauré gave the following advice for Green: “Above all, sing it as if to yourself. I have no desire to intrude my personal accents into other people’s reveries.” That advice is valid for the whole cycle, which is marked by discretion and intimacy.