Gabriel Fauré

Fauré was a composer whose refined and gentle music influenced the course of modern French music. Fauré studied piano with Camille Saint-Saëns, who introduced him to the music of Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner. Although he had deep respect for the traditional forms of music, Fauré delighted in infusing those forms with a mélange of harmonic daring and a freshness of invention. This quiet and unspectacular revolution prepared the way for more sensational innovations by the modern French school. One of the most striking features of his style was his fondness for daring harmonic progressions and sudden modulations, invariably carried out with supreme elegance and a deceptive air of simplicity.