Pavane op.50

Fauré's Pavane was initially the last part of his "Suite bergamasque"and became later an isolated piece.
It has the same atmosphere one can find in Fauré's Suite and in another Suite bergamasque, Debussy's one.

It's difficult to render by words the meaning of "bergamasque". It's like an evocation of Pierrot, Arlequin and Colombine, or of the so peculiar Watteau's paintings (see attachment if you like), something of a mix of gentle flirting and smiling nostalgy among dreamed landscapes.

The most adequate words to describe this atmosphere are perhaps those of Verlaine's poem "Clair de lune" :

"Votre âme est un paysage choisi
Que vont charmant masques et bergamasques
Jouant du luth et dansant et quasi
Tristes sous leurs déguisements fantasques.

Tout en chantant sur le mode mineur
L'amour vainqueur et la vie opportune,
Ils n'ont pas l'air de croire à leur bonheur
Et leur chanson se mêle au clair de lune,

Au calme clair de lune triste et beau,
Qui fait rêver les oiseaux dans les arbres
Et sangloter d'extase les jets d'eau,
Les grands jets d'eau sveltes parmi les marbres."

Approximately in English :

"Your soul is a chosen landscape
How charming masks and bergamasques go
Playing the lute and dancing and quasi
Sad under their whimsical disguises.

While singing in the minor mode
Conquering love and the expedient life,
They don't seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight,

In the calm moonlight sad and beautiful,
Who makes the birds dream in the trees
And sob with ecstasy the water jets,
The tall, slender fountains among the marbles".