Fantaisie op. 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 for a 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 not know what and how much Taffanel might have changed; however, the result is a brilliant recital piece. In our edition we have added a little Adagio without opus number that Fauré also composed in 1898 for the exams at the Conservatoire as a sight-reading piece.