"This may be tempestuous music," wrote Max Harrison in the liner notes to the 1992 Philips recording of Gabriel Fauré's Piano Quartet in G minor No. 2, "but it is also closely argued." Such a description suggests a conception of "music as rhetoric" that is usually much more closely identified with the eighteenth century German tradition than the musical circles of fin de siècle France. Still, the observation holds true. Though known for his capacity for stretching melodies beyond the strictures of foursquare phrases and coloring his harmonic schemes with vibrant modal inflections and innovative progressions, Fauré's mature, mid-career works, as exemplified by the G minor quartet (Op. 45, 1886), sustain their lyricism and validate their progressive harmonic languages through tightly woven structures. This tendency is not unique to the Op. 45 quartet; a strong sense of thematic cohesion and sensitivity toward structural pacing is also evident, for example, in the Piano Quartet No. 1, Op. 15 (1879). As in the earlier work, Fauré draws close connections between his forceful and lyrical themes, sometimes casting different veils on the same material. At the same time, however, Fauré's lines are crafted in such a way as to suggest continuity rather than segmentation; a strong sense of form is present, but the seams are well hidden. The quartet's four movements offer striking contrasts of character. The first movement, Allegro molto moderato, presents a bold minor-mode theme (the characteristic chromatic inflections of which actually suggest Phrygian), the contours of which closely relate to subsequent, more lyrical, themes. The movement as a whole conveys an urgency that takes a sly turn in the scherzo second movement, Allegro molto, which is propelled by a continual figurational motion and rhythmic intensity, and which echoes motifs from the first movement. The third movement, Adagio non troppo, is at once serene and unassuming, with long, lyrical lines in the viola alternating with tiptoeing chords in the piano. The piano executes nimble acrobatics in the final movement, Allegro molto, while the string melodies swirl around each other, then coalesce in forceful unisons. These moments of clarity are not articulated as musical consequences, however, but rather emerge naturally from the piece's dramatic contours. If the work, then, is "closely argued," it conveys its expression through persuasion rather than force of logic. Perhaps not rhetorical oration, then, but certainly a convincing soliloquy.

© Jeremy Grimshaw, Rovi