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The youngest of 6 children, Gabriel Fauré was born in the south of France to a cultured, but nonmusical family.
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At age 9, his musical talent was recognized and his father agreed to send him to the École de Musique Classique et Religieuse.
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Due to Niedermeyer's death, Camille Saint-Saëns enthusiastically took his posiiton and became Fauré's teacher, exposing him to radical new music.
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Winning premier prix for the composition competition at the École Niedermeyer de Paris, this piece was first performed on this date.
A link to a recording of this piece is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wKwHiGg21KA -
Fauré was a founder of the Société Nationale de Musique, a society that promoted new French music.
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Composed in collaboration with André Messager, this piece is a miss brevis in 5 movements. A link to a recording of this piece is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_koQB9w96pc -
Although it was not finally revised until 1900, a first performance of the piece was premiered at a funeral mass in La Madeleine in Paris.
A link to a recording of this piece is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UnilUPXmipM -
Following a scandal, Fauré took over as head of the Conservatoire de Paris, something that would not have been possible just a few years prior, due to Fauré's modernism.
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His final composition, Fauré finally finished his first-ever piece in the genre he feared most: the string quartet. A link to a recording of the piece is:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=24pV-0CUCYY -
At age 79, Fauré died of pneumonia in Paris and is buried at Passy Cemetery in the same city.
