Fantasie Opus 79 und Morceau de lecture

Fauré’s exquisite Fantaisie is one of the jewels in chamber music for which we are indebted to his time at the Paris Conservatoire. The Flute professor there, Paul Taffanel, had asked his colleague fora virtuoso examination piece. Fauré presented him with the manuscript in 1898 with the explicit indication “to modify unplayable passages” before using it in the exam. As the autograph score no longer exists, we do notknow what and how much Taffanel might have changed; however, the result is a brilliant recital piece.

In this Henle edition they have added a little Adagio without opus number that Fauré also composed in 1898 forthe exams at the Conservatoire as a sight-reading piece.