If, as a budding late nineteenth/early twentieth century composer, you were casting round for a good ‘modern’ rôle model for your music, the choice – at first glance – must have seemed fairly stark: put simply, either the primitivist rock of Stravinsky or the post-Wagnerian hard place of Schönberg.

But there was a third way. Undemonstrative, subtle, sophisticated (no thumping or screaming here), the music of Gabriel Fauré explores a world far removed from Slavic paganism or Teutonic expressionist angst. And his influence was extensive: both Debussy and Ravel owe a debt of honour to him, not to mention several of the following generations of French (and Anglo-Saxon) composers.

Listen to, and discuss the music of Gabriel Fauré and his contemporaries at: