Lydia

Soprano

Alto

Tenor

Bass

Sound (mp3) download links

Lydia-Soprano.mp3 (7 downloads) Lydia-Alto.mp3 (7 downloads) Lydia-Tenor.mp3 (7 downloads) Lydia-Bass.mp3 (6 downloads)

Translation - one of many

 Lydia, on your rosy cheeks
 And on your cool collar and, whiter
 Than milk, flows sparkling
 The fluid golden tresses you untie
 
 This shining day is the best of all
 Let us forget the eternal grave
 Let your dove kisses
 Sing on your blooming lips
 
 A hidden lily spreads unceasingly
 A divine fragrance on your breast
 The delights, like a swarm
 Come out of you, young goddess
 
 I love you and die, oh my love
 Kisses have carried away my soul!
 Oh Lydia, give me back life,
 That I may die, forever die!

 

Biography

Gabriel Fauré, May 12, 1845 to Nov. 4, 1924, was a French composer whose refined and gentle music influenced the course of modern French music.

His musical abilities became apparent at an early age. When the Swiss composer and teacher Louis Niedermeyer heard the boy, he immediately accepted him as a pupil. Fauré studied piano with Saint-Saens, who introduced him to the music of Liszt and Wagner.

After graduating in 1865, Fauré earned a modest living as an organist and piano teacher. In October 1871, he was appointed choirmaster at the Église Saint-Sulpice, Paris (pictured), under the organist Widor. During some services, the two improvised simultaneously on the church’s two organs, trying to catch each other out with sudden changes of key.

Fauré said of his Requiem, “Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest.” Fauré saw death as a “happy deliverance, an aspiration towards happiness above, rather than as a painful experience.”

Fauré suffered from poor health in his later years, brought on by heavy smoking. Despite this, he remained available to teach and dispense advice to young composers, including members of Les Six, most of whom were devoted to him. He died in Paris from pneumonia on 4 November 1924 at the age of 79.