Fantaisie for Flute and Orchestra, Op. 79

• Fauré originally wrote this piece for flute and piano in 1898.¹
• The work was commissioned by Paul Taffenel (1844-1908), one of Fauré’s teaching colleagues at the Paris Conservatoire. Taffenel needed a virtuosic concours (competition) piece for his students’ July 1898 examinations. Fauré rushed through June and early July 1898 to finish this Fantaisie for Taffanel. The work’s first performance was given by Gaston Blanquart, the competition winner, on July 28, 1898.²

“I am drowned in the Taffanel and plunged up to my neck in sc ales, arpeggios, and staccati! I have already perpetrated 104 bars of this irksome torture…”

Fauré, writing to a friend about composing this work³

• This piece was orchestrated in 1957 by Louis Aubert, who had studied with Fauré at the Paris Conservatoire.⁴

1. Jean-Michel Nectoux, “Fauré, Gabriel,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed September 26, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000009366.
2. Adrian Corleonis, “Gabriel Fauré: Fantaisie for flute & piano (or orchestra) in E minor, Op. 79,” AllMusic, accessed September 26, 2019, https://www.allmusic.com/composition/fantaisie-for-flute-piano-or-orchestra-in-e-minor-op-79-mc0002369840.
3. Quoted in Ibid.
4. Nectoux, “Fauré, Gabriel,” Grove Music Online.