9 - Fauré, Orientalism, and Le voile du bonheur

Summary

It is no surprise that Fauré has never been associated with orientalism or exotic musics. Aside from a few paragraphs by Sylvain Caron, no one has ventured to write a study of Fauré and orientalism.¹ Indeed, it almost seems as if the composer himself ordained this dissociation for his own legacy. His final two song cycles, Mirages, Op. 113, and L’horizon chimérique, Op. 118, bring the point home. The titles of both works evoke faraway geographies. But the first song of Mirages, “Cygne sur l’eau,” works in the opposite direction: the itinerary reaches inward.